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From the Berlin Journal / Aus dem Berliner Journal
Edited by Thomas Strässle, with the cooperation of Margit Unser
The inimitable Frisch is back: clear-sighted and unillusioned in tone, with his signature irony and sharp perspective on life and the world.
The legendary Berlin Journal is one of the great treasures in Max Frisch’s posthumous papers. Frisch himself mandated that it not be published until twenty years after his death because of the »private matters« it contained. Now, for the first time, we are able to publish selections of the Journal.
When Max Frisch moved into a new flat on Sarrazinstraße in Berlin in 1973, the Swiss author began keeping a diary, which he called his...
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The legendary Berlin Journal is one of the great treasures in Max Frisch’s posthumous papers. Frisch himself mandated that it not be published until twenty years after his death because of the »private matters« it contained. Now, for the first time, we are able to publish selections of the Journal.
When Max Frisch moved into a new flat on Sarrazinstraße in Berlin in 1973, the Swiss author began keeping a diary, which he called his Berlin Journal. In an interview a few years later, he insisted that it was by no means a mere »jotter« but rather a »carefully composed book«. In its literary form, it is similar to his world-famous sketchbooks from the years 1945–1946 and 1966–1971: reflections on the author’s daily life sit side-by-side with narrative and essayistic texts, as well as perspicacious portraits of fellow authors such as Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Wolf Biermann, and Christa Wolf. Above all, these diary writings attest to the extraordinary acuity with which Frisch, as an inhabitant of West Berlin, observed and experienced the political and social situation in East Germany.
»Why don’t you write another diary?«
»When I came to Berlin in 1973, I […] started keeping a diary again, the so-called Berlin Diary, about fellow authors, Grass, [Uwe] Johnson, about the Leipzig book fair, about also mixed in with very private things. […] I’ve put a hold on it till twenty years after I’m dead: because the people involved, who will have more distance to it by then. But for now it’s in the deep freeze.«
(from: »I draw from experience« Volker Hage in conversation with Max Frisch, in: Max Frisch, Sein Leben und Werk in Bildern und Texten, Berlin 2011)
»Frisch is remembered for innovative plays and experimental prose on the themes of identity, self-delusion, anti-Semitism, and the clash between cultural heritage and materialism. Frisch moved to Berlin in 1973, and it was there that his increasingly autobiographical writings began to reveal a tormented soul teetering on the brink of self-loathing ... The Berlin journal is distinguished by a Kafkaesque combination of real-life events, musings, dreams, distant memories and preliminary sketches.« Times Literary Supplement
»Frisch is remembered for innovative plays and experimental prose on the themes of identity, self-delusion, anti-Semitism, and the clash between cultural heritage and materialism. Frisch moved to Berlin in 1973, and it was there that his increasingly autobiographical writings began to reveal a tormented soul teetering on the brink of self-loathing ... The Berlin journal is distinguished by a Kafkaesque combination of real-life events, musings, dreams, distant memories and preliminary...
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2014, 235 pages
Persons
Max Frisch
Author
Max Frisch, born in Zurich in 1911, first worked as a journalist, later as an architect, until his breakthrough as a writer with his novel Stiller (1954). This was followed by the novels Homo faber (1957) and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964) as well as short stories, diaries, plays, radio plays and essays. Frisch died in Zurich on April 4, 1991.
Max Frisch
Author
Max Frisch, born in Zurich in 1911, first worked as a journalist, later as an architect, until his breakthrough as a writer with his novel...
© Andrej Reiser
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2022
Ingeborg Bachmann, Max FrischYear of Publication: 2022
»We Didn’t Do Well.«
Spring 1958: Ingeborg Bachmann – celebrated poet, winner of Literary Prize of Gruppe 47 and cover star of Der Spiegel – is broadcasting the radio play Der gute Gott von...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Feltrinelli)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (speak low)
Year of Publication: 2019
Max FrischYear of Publication: 2019
Questionnaire
»Do you consider yourself to be a good friend? Are you a good friend to yourself?« Twenty-three questions on the subject of friendship lie between these two queries. Max Frisch’s...
Rights sold to:
Russia (Libra), Netherlands (Borgerhoff-Lamberigts), Denmark (Basilisk), Sweden (Faethon), Czech Republic (Pulchra), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Georgia (Sulakauri)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
Year of Publication: 2018
Max Frisch, Uwe JohnsonYear of Publication: 2018
Sketches of an Accident/Sketches of an Accident Victim
In his Sketchbook, 1966–1971, Max Frisch published fragments of a story under the title »Sketches of an Accident«. In these fragments, the doctor Viktor travels with his lover, Marlies, a specialist in Romance studies, to Provence. An accident occurs, and the woman dies. Viktor is never again involved in an accident, but the rest of his life is influenced by his...
Year of Publication: 2015
Max FrischYear of Publication: 2015
Ignorance as State Security?
In his final typescript, in a deeply personal way and in a novel literary form, Max Frisch engaged with the national scandal that rocked Switzerland in 1989 and 1990: almost a million Swiss citizens had been under State surveillance during the Cold War. On individualised index cards or »fiches« the Attorney General’s Office created a chronicle of suspicion, whose grotesque banality served...
Year of Publication: 2010
Max FrischYear of Publication: 2010
Drafts for a Third Sketchbook
The typescript of a previously unknown work was discovered in the Max Frisch Archive in Zurich in 2009. A total of 184 pages, dictated by Frisch, typed from tape by his secretary. A...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), France (Grasset), Italy (Casagrande Edizioni), Sweden (Faethon), Finland (Lurra), Poland (W.A.B.), Czech Republic (Paseka), Bulgaria (Lege Artis)
Year of Publication: 2009
Max FrischYear of Publication: 2009
An Answer from the Silence
Max Frisch’s literary career began in 1934 with the novel Jürg Reinhart, a summery tale of the road to destiny. Three years later in the German publishing establishment he...
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English world rights (Seagull), France (Gallimard), Italy (Del Vecchio), Czech Republic (Archa), Turkey (Kolektif)
Year of Publication: 1975
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1975
Montauk
»I want to describe this day, nothing but this day, our weekend and all of this happened, what happens next, without inventing anything.«
»Max Frisch’s candid story of his...
Rights sold to:
USA & Canada (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Spanish world rights (pocketbook; PRH / DeBolsillo), Argentina (hardcover; Pinka), Arabic world rights (Al Kamel), France (Gallimard), Italy (Mondadori), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Bulgaria (Lege Artis), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Georgia (Sulakauri), Armenia (Antares), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Israel (Kinneret, Zmora, Bitan, Modan)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: UK & Commonwealth (Methuen), Chinese simplex rights (Chu Chen), Russia (AST), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Weilin & Göös), Poland (Czytelnik), Czech Republic (Mlada Fronta), Slovakia (Slovensky Spisovatel), Romania / Republic of Moldova (Polirom), Estonia (Verrak), Latvia (Liesma), Lithuania (Lithuanian Writers Union), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Melani)
Year of Publication: 1973
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1973
I’m Not Stiller
Upon entering Switzerland, Mister White is arrested because the police believe he is the missing sculptor Anatol Ludwig Stiller. Former friends confirm their suspicion. Yet White denies this...
Rights sold to:
USA & Canada (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), UK & Commonwealth (Seagull), Arabic world rights (Mamdouh Adwan), France (Grasset), Italy (Mondadori), Korea (Munhakdongne), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), North Macedonia (Ad Verbum), Ukraine (Fabula), Georgia (Sulakauri), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Israel (Zmora), Amharic (Hohe)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Seix Barral), Catalan rights (Ediciones Proa), Chinese simplex rights (Chongquing), Russia (AST), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Editora Siciliano), Portuguese rights (Arcadia), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Alba), Norway (Tiden Norsk), Finland (Weilin & Göös), Japan (Hakusuisha), Poland (Muza), Czech Republic (Odeon), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Lege Artis), Romania (Polirom), Croatia (Prosveta), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Kedros), Albania (Asdreni), Ukraine (Folio), Afrikaans (Afrikaans Pers Boekhandel)
Year of Publication: 1972
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1972
Sketchbook, 1966–1971
»By the time Swiss author Max Frisch published the second volume of his diaries or sketchbooks, he had achieved international recognition as a writer and dramatist. In this volume, he develops...
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English world rights (Seagull), France (Gallimard), Italy (Felltrinelli), Korea (Segaellbo), Poland (W.A.B.), Czech Republic (Archa), Slovakia (Slovensky Spisovatel), Romania (Univers), Slovenia (Studentska Zalozba Beletrina), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Macedonia (Magor Doo), Kosovo / Albanian (Shtëpia Botuese PA)
Year of Publication: 1964
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1964
Gantenbein
A man sits in his flat, alone. The carpets are rolled up, the shutters closed, the furniture is covered with white cloths. »Of the people who once lived here, one thing is certain: one male,...
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English world rights (Seagull), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Estação Liberdade), France (Gallimard), Italy (Mondadori), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Bulgaria (Lege Artis), Turkey (Can), Georgia (Sulakauri), Armenia (Antares), Israel (Zmora Bitan Modan)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Seix Barral), Russia (AST), Portuguese rights (Arcadia), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Bonniers), Finland (Otava), Korea (Chaek-Se-Sang), Japan (Sanshusha), Poland (Znak), Czech Republic (Mlada Fronta), Slovak Republic (Slovensky Spisovatel), Romania (Polirom), Latvia (Jumava), Lithuania (Lithuanian Writers Union), Croatia (ZORA), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Melani), Albania (PA), Ukraine (Folio)
Year of Publication: 1957
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1957
Homo faber
Max Frisch‘s Homo faber is one of the most important and most-read books of the 20th century: Engineer Walter Faber believes in a rational worldview that is irrevocably destroyed by a...
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USA & Canada (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), UK & Commonwealth (Penguin), English audio book (Seagull), Arabic world rights (Kanaan), France (Gallimard), Italy (Feltrinelli), Denmark (Gyldendal), Korea (Eulyoo), Czech Republic (Archa), Romania (Curtea Veche), Serbia (Sumatra), Turkey (Can), Greece (Patakis), Ukraine (Fabula), Georgia (Sulakauri), Armenia (Antares), Israel (Hakibbutz Hameuchad)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Seix Barral), Basque rights (Elkarlanean), Catalan rights (Edicions 62), Chinese simplex rights (Chongqing), Russia (AST), Portuguese rights (Guanabara), Netherlands (Atlas), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Otava), Iceland (Mal Og Menning), Japan (Hakusuisha), Poland (Weltbild Polska), Slovakia (Smena), Hungary (Sziget), Bulgaria (Lege Artis), Latvia (Jumava), Lithuania (Baltos Lankos), Croatia (Pegaz), Slovenia (Beletrina), Macedonia (Magor), Albania (Dudaj), Ukraine (Osnovy), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)
Year of Publication: 1950
Max FrischYear of Publication: 1950
Sketchbook, 1946–1949
Max Frisch's sketchbook is a survey. His reports from Europe between the years of 1946 and 1949, the accounts of his encounters in the post-war years are of both historic and current...
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English world rights (Seagull), France (Gallimard), Italy (Felltrinelli), Poland (W.A.B.), Czech Republic (ERM Nakladatelstvi), Slovakia (Premedia), Bulgaria (Bakalov), Romania (Univers), Serbo-croatian world rights (BIGZ), Serbia (AED-Studio), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Greece (Kohlias), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)
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