Max Frisch

Max Frisch is the most widely read Swiss writer: in Germany, his books reach editions of millions. This is the most thoroughly researched biography to date, describing his life and development as a writer until his breakthrough novel Stiller in 1954.

»One can narrate everything, just not one’s real life.« Stiller

For this new biography of Swiss writer Max Frisch, Julian Schütt, one of the most knowledgeable writers on Frisch’s life and work, has gathered for the first time the entirety of sources shedding light on Frisch’s early years and the beginning of his writing career. He looked at numerous hitherto unknown letters, sketches and documents, and spoke with many of Frisch’s contemporaries. In a lively, colourful way, Schütt tells the story of how Max Frisch became a world renowned writer.

Max Frisch was haunted by both World Wars. The first one overshadowed his childhood, ruining his family’s life, while the second one destroyed his identity as a writer. From that point on, Frisch exposed himself to a great variety of »objects that glowed«, as he would call it, to love as much as to the rubble and ruins of war-torn countries. Then he began to write works such as Graf Öderland, Tagebuch 1946-1949 and Stiller, in which he demonstrates in an inimitable way that politics and literature do not have to be opposites. Paradoxically, the »I« – often his own one – always served as Frisch’s starting point, whereas the restless seeker of identity often found the greatest happiness in those moments, in which he was a stranger to himself.