Friedrich Dürrenmatt

The mysterious and unbearably tense tale of a detective's obsessive pursuit of a child murderer, from one of the post-war era's greatest writers in German When a young girl is found brutally murdered in a Swiss mountain forest, the brilliant Inspector Matthai can't put the case behind him. Not even when a local felon is arrested. Not even once the suspect has confessed. Matthai promises the girl's mother that he will stop at nothing to find the real killer. Adapted into a Hollywood film, The Pledge is the chilling story of a man in desperate search of the truth. A man driven to sacrifice everything, to commit acts of cruelty and obsession in a desperate search for a killer he can't find. Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist, most famous for his plays The Visit and The Physicists, which earned him a reputation as one of the greatest playwrights in the German language. He also wrote four highly regarded crime novels - The Pledge, The Judge and His Hangman, Suspicion and The Execution of Justice, all of which will be published by Pushkin Vertigo.

Liket av en flicka upptäcks i skogarna utanför den schweiziska byn Mägendorf. Kommissarie Matthäi berörs djupt av tragedin och svär inför flickans föräldrar att han ska hitta mördaren. Men medan byborna redan bestämt sig för vem som är den skyldige och blir lättade när han hänger sig så är Matthäi inte lika säker . Kommissariens löfte är den lika spännande som gripande historien om att kämpa för rättvisan och stå upp för sin sak - och priset som detta kommer med. Förord av Lena Andersson.

These translations of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s plays 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. Dürrenmatt’s concerns are timeless, but they are also the product of his Swiss vantage during the cold war: his key plays, gathered in the first volume of Selected Writings, explore such themes as guilt by passivity, the refusal of responsibility, greed and political decay, and the tension between justice and freedom. In The Visit, for instance, an old lady who becomes the wealthiest person in the world returns to the village that cast her out as a young woman and offers riches to the town in exchange for the life of the man, now its mayor, who once disgraced her. Joel Agee’s crystalline translation gives a fresh lease to this play, as well as four others: The Physicists, Romulus the Great, Hercules and the Augean Stables, and The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi. 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.

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 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.

These translations of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s fiction 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. This second volume of Selected Writings reveals a writer who may stand as Kafka’s greatest heir. Dürrenmatt’s novellas and short stories are searing, tragicomic explorations of the ironies of justice and the corruptibility of institutions. The most well-known work included here is The Pledge, a requiem to the detective story that was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson. The evocative novellas The Assignment tells the story of a woman filmmaker investigating a mysterious murder in an unnamed Arab country; it has been hailed by Sven Birkerts as “a parable of hell for an age consumed by images.” The novella Traps, meanwhile, is a chilling comic novella about a traveling salesman who agrees to play the role of the defendant in a mock trial among dinner companions—and then pays the ultimate penalty. 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.

Titelnovellen i den här samlingen, ”Tunneln”, är ett av Friedrich Dürrenmatts viktigaste verk och räknas som en surrealistisk klassiker. Den börjar som en parodi på Thomas Manns långa och vindlande meningar för att sedan abrupt byta stil. Novellen om den unge studenten som åker in i en tunnel som aldrig tycks ta slut har med sin anmärkningsvärda slutscen öppnat för en rad olika tolkningar. Tunneln och andra noveller innehåller ytterligare tre texter. Flera av Dürrenmatts böcker har tidigare översatts till svenska, men ”Tunneln” och de övriga novellerna översätts nu för första gången.Med efterord av Rebecka Kärde.

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 translations of his plays, fictions, and essays, Dürrenmatt becomes available again in all his brilliance to the English-speaking world. Dürrenmatt’s concerns are timeless, but they are also the product of his Swiss vantage during the cold war: his key plays, gathered in the first volume of Selected Writings, explore such themes as guilt by passivity, the refusal of responsibility, greed and political decay, and the tension between justice and freedom. In The Visit, for instance, an old lady who becomes the wealthiest person in the world returns to the village that cast her out as a young woman and offers riches to the town in exchange for the life of the man, now its mayor, who once disgraced her. Joel Agee’s crystalline translation gives a fresh lease to this play, as well as four others: The Physicists, Romulus the Great, Hercules and the Augean Stables, and The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi. 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.

När en polisinspektor från Bern hittas skjuten vid vägkanten ute på landsbygden ger sig kommissarie Bärlach och hans assistent Tschanz ut för att hitta mördaren. Kommissarien är dödssjuk och har inte lång tid kvar. Snart upptäcker de att offret har skjutits på hemvägen från en hemlig fest hos en inflytelserik lobbyist. Varför umgicks en enkel polis i dessa mäktiga kretsar? Vem är den gåtfulle värden? Och varför har Bärlachs förflutna återvänt för att hemsöka honom under hans sista tid i livet? Översättning och efterord av Ola Wallin. KRITIKERRÖSTER»Boken är både spännande och gripande, och det moraliska/etiska problem som dyker upp i slutet stannar kvar hos läsaren. Det är mycket välkommet med nyöversättningen av denna lilla pärla.« Veit G:Son Berg, Bibliotekstjänst»Här vädras misstro mot statsapparaten, här skymtar hierarkierna inom poliskåren, här ställs gamla beprövade polismetoder mot nymodigheter som kriminologi och här knyts intrigtrådarna ihop i en filosofiskt kryddad kraftmätning à la Sherlock Holmes mot professor Moriarty eller Batman versus The Joker mellan vår kommissarie och den ärkeskurk han en gång för länge sedan stötte på i Istanbul. Allt på 120 sidor.« Anders Sjögren, Västerbottenskuriren»Dürrenmatt omtolkade kriminalromanen... gav stafettpinnen vidare till likar som Umberto Eco och Paul Auster.« The National »En trollbindande kriminalroman.« Washington Post

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