Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Dürrenmatt in 1989.
Born	5 January 1921(1921-01-05) Konolfingen, Switzerland
Died	14 December 1990(1990-12-14) (aged 69) Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Occupation	Playwright, novelist
Language	German
Nationality	Swiss
Notable work(s)	The Physicists The Visit

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (German pronunciation: [ˈfriːdrɪç ˈdʏrənˌmat] (5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire. Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten.

Biography

Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, in the Emmental (canton of Bern), the son of a Protestant pastor. His grandfather, Ulrich Dürrenmatt, was a conservative politician. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began studies in philosophy and German language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester. In 1943, he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. In 1945–46, he wrote his first play It is Written. On 11 October 1946, he married the actress Lotti Geissler. She died on 16 January 1983, and Dürrenmatt married again in 1984 to another actress, Charlotte Kerr.

Dürrenmatt also enjoyed painting. Some of his own works and his drawings were exhibited in Neuchâtel in 1976 and 1985, as well as in Zurich in 1978.

Later life

View above the Centre Dürrenmatt at the Lake Neuchâtel.

In 1990, he gave two famous speeches, one in honour of Václav Havel (Die Schweiz, ein Gefängnis? / Switzerland a prison?), and the other in honour of Mikhail Gorbachev (Kants Hoffnung / Kant's Hope). Dürrenmatt often compared the three Abrahamic religions and Marxism, which he also saw as a religion.

Even if there are several parallels between Dürrenmatt and Brecht, Dürrenmatt never took a political position, but represented a pragmatic philosophy of life. In 1969, he traveled in the USA, in 1974 to Israel, and in 1990 to Auschwitz in Poland.

Dürrenmatt died from heart failure on 14 December 1990 in Neuchâtel.

Selected bibliography

• Es steht geschrieben (1947)
• Der Blinde (1947)
• Romulus the Great: An Ahistorical Historical Comedy in Four Acts (Romulus der Große, 1950, play)
• The Judge and His Hangman (Der Richter und sein Henker, 1950; novella)
• Suspicion (Der Verdacht, 1951, also known as The Quarry)
• "The Tunnel" ("Der Tunnel", 1952; short story)
• The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi, 1952, play)
• "Theatre Problems" ("Theaterprobleme", 1954, essay)
• Once a Greek (Grieche sucht Griechin, 1955, novel)
• The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame, 1956, play)
• A Dangerous Game (Die Panne, 1956, novel / novella, also known as Traps)
• The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel (Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman, 1958, novella)
• The Physicists: A Comedy in Two Acts (Die Physiker, 1962, play)
• Der Meteor (1966)
• Play Strindberg (1969, play)
• "Monster Lecture on Justice and Law, with a Helvetian Interlude" ("Monstervortrag", 1969, lecture)
• "The Coup" ("Der Sturz", 1971, short story)
• Achterloo (1982)
• The Execution of Justice (Justiz, 1985)
• The Assignment (Der Auftrag, 1986, novella)
• "Switzerland—A Prison: A Speech for Vaclav Havel" ("Die Schweiz—ein Gefängnis. Rede auf Vaclav Havel", 1990, speech)

Dürrenmatt's stories in film

• It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958), with a TV version made in 1997
• The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (1961)
• The Visit (1964, Der Besuch der alten Dame)
• Once a Greek (1966, Grieche sucht Griechin)
• Der Meteor (1968)
• Play Strindberg (1969), based on Strindberg's The Dance of Death
• Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (Silence! The Court Is in Session)(1971), based on 'Die Panne' (Traps)
• La più bella serata della mia vita (1972, by Ettore Scola, based on 'La Panne')
• End of the Game (1976), based on The Judge and His Hangman, and in which Dürrenmatt himself appears in two scenes
• Deadly Games (1982, Trapp)
• Cumartesi Cumartesi (1984, Salam, stories in film)
• Физики (The Physicists) (1988, in Russian)
• Визит дамы (The Visit of the Lady) (1989, in Russian)
• Szürkület (Twilight) (1990, by György Fehér) based on the Es geschah am hellichten Tag movie script
• Hyènes (1992), adaptation of The Visit by the Senegalese moviemaker Djibril Diop Mambéty
• Justiz (1993)
• The Pledge (2001), based on the novel Das Versprechen, which is in turn based on the Es geschah am hellichten Tag movie script

Adaptations

His story, 'Die Panne' (Traps) was adapted into a Marathi play, Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (Silence! The Court Is in Session) by Indian playwright, Vijay Tendulkar in 1967, and since then been performed in various Indian languages, and made into a film by the same name by Satyadev Dubey.

His play 'The Visit' has been adapted and Indianised into a play called "Miss.Meena" by Chennai based theatre group called 'perch'.

References

• Everett M. Ellestad, 'Friedrich Dürrenmatt's "Mausefalle" ("Mouse Trap"),' German Quarterly, 43, 4, 770–779, Nov. 1970.
• Gerhard P. Knapp, "Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Studien zu seinem Werk," Poesie und Wissenschaft, XXXIII, Lothar Stiehm Verlag, Heidelberg, 1976.
• Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel
• National Library Switzerland

External links

• Friedrich Dürrenmatt home page sponsored by the University of Chicago Press. Includes a 1969 interview with Dürrenmatt, his story "Smithy" and essay "Automobile and Railroad Nations," and essays on Dürrenmatt.
• Radio drama by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt at the Internet Movie Database