Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

A prominent Zürich businessman walks into the city's most exclusive restaurant and politely greets the professor of German, who's dining there. He then produces a revolver and shoots him dead in front of a select group of witnesses including the local police chief and the public prosecutor. Before anyone has time to react, he walks out again and carries on with his programme for the evening - the confusion is so complete that the police only catch up with him at the Tonhalle, where he's show more listening to a performance of Bruckner's seventh symphony (and the police have to wait for the end of the piece before moving in to arrest him...).

It's probably only Dürrenmatt who could turn so transparent an act into a murky crime story full of moral ambiguities, and even Dürrenmatt had trouble with it - he started to write the book in 1957, and came back to it several times over the next 25 years, but never really worked out how to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion until the 1980s, when his publishers asked him to prepare the fragment for publication as part of his complete works. In its final form, it became essentially a satire on the idea that there can be any certainty in the concept of "criminal justice" (a theme that comes up quite a bit in Dürrenmatt), as well as poking a bit of malicious fun at Swiss bourgeois life, where "culture" and "society" always get subordinated to "business".

The book sometimes feels a bit disjointed because of the long gestation period and the very confusing timeline (the narrator of the main part of the text is an alcoholic disgraced lawyer, Spät, who has clearly lost his grasp of the order in which things happened), but there are a lot of very telling observations and some good jokes, so it's still well worth a look, even if it isn't Dürrenmatt on top of his form. show less

These translations of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s essays introduce the writer to a new generation of readers.

The Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–90) was one of the most important literary figures of the second half of the twentieth century. During the years of the cold war, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. Yet outside Europe, this prolific author is primarily known for only one work, The Visit. With these long-awaited show more translations of his plays, fictions, and essays, Dürrenmatt becomes available again in all his brilliance to the English-speaking world.

Dürrenmatt’s essays, gathered in this third volume of Selected Writings, are among his most impressive achievements. Their range alone is astonishing: he wrote with authority and charm about art, literature, philosophy, politics, and the theater. The selections here include Dürrenmatt’s best-known essays, such as “Theater Problems” and “Monster Essay on Justice and Law,” as well as the notes he took on a 1970 journey in America (in which he finds the United States “increasingly susceptible to every kind of fascism”). This volume also includes essays that shade into fiction, such as “The Winter War in Tibet,” a fantasy of a third world war waged in a vast subterranean labyrinth—a Plato’s Cave allegory rewritten for our own troubled times.

Dürrenmatt has long been considered a great writer, but one unfairly neglected in the modern world of letters. With these elegantly conceived and expertly translated volumes, a new generation of readers will rediscover his greatest works.

In his notes from his 1970 journey to the United States, Friedrich Dürrenmatt observes that America seemed to him “increasingly susceptible to every kind of fascism.” This remark reflects less a narrow political accusation and more a characteristic feature of his broader intellectual and literary approach.

1. A Moral Diagnostician of Power

Dürrenmatt consistently viewed modern societies through the lens of power, justice, and moral responsibility. In works such as The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame) and The Physicists (Die Physiker), he portrays societies that gradually surrender ethical principles under pressure from money, ideology, or institutional authority. His comment about the United States should be read in this context: he was alert to structural tendencies—mass conformity, militarization, technocracy, and ideological rigidity—that, in his view, could prepare the ground for authoritarian developments.

Thus, his “fascism” remark is less a literal claim that America was fascist and more a warning about latent possibilities within mass democracies.

2. Cold War Context

The journey took place in 1970, at the height of the Cold War and during the Vietnam War. American society was deeply polarized: protests, state violence, political assassinations, and distrust of institutions were widespread. From a European intellectual perspective—especially one shaped by the memory of 20th-century totalitarian regimes—elements such as:

Expansion of the military-industrial complex

Surveillance and anti-communist paranoia

Strong nationalist rhetoric

Mass media influence

could appear as warning signs.

Dürrenmatt’s European background is crucial here. Coming from a continent devastated by fascism, he was highly sensitive to patterns that might resemble the early stages of authoritarianism.

3. His Dramatic-Philosophical Style

Dürrenmatt was not a sociologist but a dramatist and essayist who favored paradox, exaggeration, and provocation. His thinking often operates through:

Grotesque amplification

Moral paradox

Apocalyptic imagery

Structural critique rather than empirical detail

Calling America “susceptible to every kind of fascism” fits his rhetorical style. It is deliberately sharp, meant to unsettle and provoke reflection rather than to offer balanced political analysis.

4. Skepticism Toward Mass Society

A recurring theme in Dürrenmatt’s thought is the danger of large-scale systems—bureaucracies, corporations, states—that diminish individual responsibility. He feared that modern democracies, precisely because of their technological and economic power, might drift toward forms of soft authoritarianism. His critique of the U.S. can be seen as part of a broader skepticism toward modernity itself, not only toward America.

5. Critical Evaluation

One may question whether his judgment was overly sweeping. The United States in 1970 was also characterized by:

Strong constitutional institutions

Vibrant civil rights movements

Free press and active public dissent

These features complicate the idea of “susceptibility to every kind of fascism.” His observation arguably reveals more about his philosophical anxieties than about a precise political diagnosis.

Conclusion

Dürrenmatt’s approach is best understood as that of a European moral dramatist warning against structural tendencies within modern mass democracies. His comment is polemical and hyperbolic, but consistent with his lifelong concern: that technological power and collective systems can erode moral responsibility and create conditions in which authoritarianism becomes possible—even in societies that call themselves democratic. show less

Dürrenmatt sağlığında yayımlanan bu son romanında ironiyi doruk noktasına çıkartıyor. Dünya çapındaki mafyöz ilişkiler, yerel politikacıların acizlikleri, sıradan insanların vicdanları ve çıkarları arasında bocalamaları, yoğun bir anlatı dokusuyla işleniyor.

İsviçre’nin ücra bir dağ köyü olan Derinlikler Vadisi’nde tuhaf olaylar yaşanır. Köyün tek gelir kaynağı olan kaplıca tesisleri,
gizemli bir dernek tarafından satın alınır. Kurucularının show more bile ne amaca hizmet ettiğini bilmedikleri bu ‘hayır derneği’, kaplıcayı yazın
zenginlere açar. Kışın ise kaplıca boş görünmektedir.
Köy muhtarının kızının başına gelen olaylar, gözleri kaplıcaya diker. Liechtenstein’den Antarktika’ya kadar uzanan
bir çete, bazı elemanlarını kaplıcada saklamaktadır. İzleri bürokrasinin ve dünya çapındaki işlerin derinliklerinde kaybolan bu çetenin “bir numarası”nın kim olduğu da bir meçhuldür.

Durcheinandertal is Dürrenmatt’s last novel: an accomplished satire composed of deftly interwoven narrative strands which combine scenes from Swiss rural life, encounters with the divine, and excursions into the world of organised crime. The action takes place in an apparently godforsaken Swiss village in the so-called ‘Vale of Confusion’. Godforsaken, perhaps – yet in the novel’s opening scene someone resembling ‘the God of the Old Testament but without a beard’ is lurking on the village road. It transpires that this man, as head of an international organised crime syndicate, is in fact a sort of Godfather. People bring their problems to him and he resolves them as he sees fit, aided by his faithful assistant, Gabriel. The novel revels in the opportunities for comparisons between the self-styled ‘God Without a Beard’ and the divine God, both of whom are referred to as ‘the Great Old Man’, with entertainingly confusing consequences for many of the characters.

The Vale of Confusion is on the margins of Swiss society, geographically as well as socially. The inhabitants of the village are largely unenterprising and idle, relying exclusively upon the business generated by the health spa across the valley for their livelihoods: ‘If the resort was empty during the winter the village returned to its insignificance.’ Things are thoroughly shaken up in Durcheinandertal, however, when The God Without a Beard is approached by a crackpot theologian during a stay at the resort. The theologian, Moses Melker, who has enjoyed considerable popular success with his books that espouse a theology of poverty to the super-rich, proposes to the Great Old Man that he uses some of his God-given assets to establish a unique relaxation spa for millionaires who are similarly blessed.

The Great Old Man is tickled by Melker’s suggestion and duly acquires the health resort in Durcheinandertal in order to turn it into a House of Poverty: where the über-rich can spend time without material comforts and thus be relieved of the oppressive burden of their wealth. Moses Melker is sent on an international lecture tour in order to drum up business for the unusual anti-luxury hotel. The Great Old Man’s business dealings are shrouded in mystery and intrigue and largely conducted through a dubious law firm based in Zurich, Raphael, Raphael & Raphael, who act on behalf of numerous shady clients. The House of Poverty opens for the summer season and is fully booked with company chairmen and wealthy widows who are anxious to free themselves of the trappings of wealth and experience the simplicity of poverty. Meanwhile, the villagers of Durcheinandertal suffer as the House of Poverty generates very little work for them, relying as it does on the guests catering for themselves and sharing in the daily upkeep of the hotel.

It is the former health resort’s winter incarnation which ultimately wreaks the most havoc on The Vale of Confusion, however. Although the building is supposedly empty during the winter, it is in fact teeming with international criminals. Big Jimmy, Marihunana-Joe, Baby Hackmann, Holy-Brandy and Alaska-Pint are notorious murderers, robbers and rapists belonging to the crime syndicate headed up by the Great Old Man. Supervised by Count von Kücksen of Liechtenstein, who deals in art forgeries, they use the building as a safe house during the winter, a place unknown to the FBI and other security agencies. They also use it as a clinic where criminals can receive radical plastic surgery to have their faces remodelled, making them unrecognisable when they return to the criminal underworlds of the East and West coasts of the USA. The village’s milkmaid, daughter of the mayor of Durcheinandertal, attracts the attentions of the bored, sex-starved gangsters ensconced in the hotel, and is attacked and raped. Elsi’s rape is a pivotal event within the novel. Dürrenmatt uses this violation to satirise the moral equivocation, judicial incompetence and corruption at the heart of Swiss valley life, and the rape is also the way in which the villagers in the Vale of Confusion become aware of the unorthodox winter guests in the resort across the valley, eventually precipitating the dramatic confrontation between villagers and criminals in the novel’s concluding scene.

Like Dürrenmatt’s earlier novel Justiz (Justice, 1993), Durcheinandertal portrays Switzerland as a morally and economically corrupt country riddled with international criminal organisations whose activities are, however unwittingly, supported by the Swiss population. The police, the legal and political systems and the army all contribute to a society in which both large-scale and petty crime are allowed to flourish virtually unchecked. The humour and imaginative flair with which Dürrenmatt delivers his provocative satire of Swiss society do not take the edge off his moral critique, but rather lend it additional force. Tragicomedy is Dürrenmatt’s preferred genre and it is certainly an effective approach to the financial turmoil in Durcheinandertal, ripe for an English translation to chime with the twenty-first century’s own financial confusion. show less

The Assignment is ostensibly the story of a film portraitist, F., who is hired to investigate the murder of an eminent psychiatrist's wife in a unspecified North African country M. It soon becomes a political thriller as F. tries to navigate the various security services and international agents hoping to use her assignment for their own ends. The novel consists of twenty-four chapter-length sentences; Dürrenmatt's choice aptly evokes the estrangement and paranoia of F.

A number of obvious show more comparisons arose; the use of the schematic mystery form to investigate identity and subjectivity recalls Robbe-Grillet and the nouveau roman, while the extended prose could be from any number of mid-century modernists. Perhaps the most interesting to me is the resituation of Kafka's absurd bureaucratic nightmare from Central Europe to the Maghreb. Did the political imperatives of the Cold War minimize that traditional relationship? Perhaps it was the contemporary intrigue in the region (Iran-Contra, Gaddafi's antics, etc) that brought that to light. Whichever way, it's unsettling and intriguing at once.

The Assignment is ironically ultimately a statement about the unseen; about the agents of world powers using states as playing pieces, wars as testbeds, and people as tools. Dürrenmatt's implication of the dominant ideologies of the US and USSR as being just so much political faith is important and powerful.

A major theme is, of course, observation and the effects of observation on identity. I'm not sure Dürrenmatt was as on target here as elsewhere; his use is leading but left me cold in the end. Maybe it's because the decentered subject and the proliferation of images are taken for granted these days that I can't work up enthusiasm for it. Still, interested readers would probably find something of value here.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Assignment. I'd found his earlier work of the 1950's amusing but overly clever. The Assignment is the work of a mature artist capably expressing ideas. It's not a revolutionary work, but that doesn't matter. Dürrenmatt's novel is full of phrases of delightful clarity and strange insight; it's an exceptional work of European modernism that ought to be wider read.

University of Chicago Press's edition includes a good foreward by Theodore Ziolkowski that puts the book in perspective. Agee's translation is readable and lucid. show less