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Max Frisch (1911 - 1991)

• Biography

• Other Plays

• Novels

• The background to Andorra: Der andorranische Jude

Biography

Max Rudolf Frisch was born in Zurich, Switzerland on May 15 1911.  His parents were Franz Bruno Frisch (an architect), and Karolina Bettina Frisch (neé Wildermuth).

He studied at the Realgymnasium in Zurich, and then at Zurich University where he began to study Germanistik. He did not, however, complete university.  Aside from being a novelist and playwright, Frisch also worked as a journalist and architect.

He died in Zurich on April 4 1991.

Other Plays

Biedermann und die Brandstifter (Biedermann and the Arsonists) is a study of evil, and also (like Andorra) examines the role of the individual in terrible events.

Die Chinesische Mauer (The Chinese Wall) (1946) is an "experimental farce which mixes ancient and modern settings and characters".  Its main themes are power and self-destructiveness.

Next appeared Als der Krieg zu Ende war (When the War Was Over, 1949) and the farce The Firebugs (1958; trans. 1962).

Novels

Ich bin nicht Stiller (I'm Not Stiller) (1954) is a novel about an intellectual struggling with his identity.

Other novels include Homo Faber (1957), A Wilderness of Mirrors (1964), Man in the Holocene (1979), and Bluebeard (1982).

The Background to Andorra

After the Second World War, Frisch wrote a small prose sketch in his diary called Der andorranische Jude (The Andorran Jew). It was only a few pages long, and contains all the main points of the plot, which he eventually developed into Andorra. The similarities are obvious, but there are no detail of the plot (for instance the name Andorra is never used - except in the title), and no named characters. Frisch wrote Andorra later between approximately 1958 and 1961.

Copyright © 2001 [David G Watkins]. All rights reserved.