{"title":"Books by Friedrich Durrenmatt","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780224009140","title":"The Visit","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Visit\u003c\/i\u003e (original title \u003ci\u003eDer Besuch der alten Dame\u003c\/i\u003e), Claire Zachanassian, now a multimillion heiress and an older woman, returns to the impoverished town of her youth with a dreadful bargain: in exchange for returning the town to prosperity through her vast wealth, she wants the townspeople to kill the man who jilted her. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom its subtle exploration of parochial politics to its horrific climax,\u003ci\u003e The Visit\u003c\/i\u003e shows a population willing to sacrifice loyalty and scruples in the pursuit of riches. It is a drama of the absurd that reduces human nature to its most ridiculous depths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDürrenmatt was one of the most important figures of modern European drama and \u003ci\u003eThe Visit\u003c\/i\u003e remains both a powerful critique of twentieth century civilisation and an outstanding piece of experimental theatre.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201520369842,"sku":"9780224009140","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780224009140_f7134e5f-0137-447e-9706-e7b72ee4742a.jpg?v=1786012916"},{"product_id":"9780226838328","title":"Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Selected Writings, Volume 3, Essays","description":"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.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227579232629,"sku":"9780226838328","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226838328_1536642e-a8cb-4035-8e51-b2c2732e7c26.jpg?v=1786012458"},{"product_id":"9780226174440","title":"The Inspector Barlach Mysteries – The Judge and His Hangman and Suspicion","description":"This volume offers bracing new translations of two precursors to the modern detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, whose genre-bending mysteries recall the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet and anticipate the postmodern fictions of Paul Auster and other contemporary neo-noir novelists. Both mysteries follow Inspector Barlach as he moves through worlds in which the distinction between crime and justice seems to have vanished. In The Judge and His Hangman, Barlach forgoes the arrest of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive criminal. And in Suspicion, Barlach pursues a former Nazi doctor by checking into his clinic with the hope of forcing him to reveal himself. The result is two thrillers that bring existential philosophy and the detective genre into dazzling convergence.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227804381557,"sku":"9780226174440","price":16.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226174440_44a9688a-1489-4c1a-a798-3dc22d9e18b8.jpg?v=1786012325"},{"product_id":"9780415051408","title":"Der Besuch der alten Dame","description":"Includes the full German text, accompanied by German-English vocabulary. Notes and a detailed introduction in English put the work in its social and historical context.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56289752580469,"sku":"9780415051408","price":35.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780415051408_795566d3-7ccc-4242-b88c-30b4ae8aad12.jpg?v=1786013475"},{"product_id":"9781782273875","title":"The Execution of Justice","description":"\u003cb\u003eA captivating neo-noir classic from one of the masters of the genre\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA respected professor is dead—shot in a crowded Zurich restaurant, in front of dozens of witnesses. The murderer calmly turned himself in to the police. So why has he now hired a lawyer to clear his name? And why has he chosen the drink-soaked, disreputable Spät to defend him?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAs he investigates, Spät finds himself obsessed, drawn ever deeper into a case of baffling complexity until he reaches a deadly conclusion: justice can be restored only by a crime.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Execution of Justice\u003c\/i\u003e is a dark, wicked satire on the legal system and a disturbing, if ambivalent, allegory on guilt, justice, violence and morality.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304306684277,"sku":"9781782273875","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781782273875_b3ffca7f-24d9-4dcc-a166-56063afd2c1b.jpg?v=1786026177"},{"product_id":"9781848429598","title":"The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes to Call","description":"In the town of Slurry, New York, post-war recession has bitten.   Claire Zachanassian, improbably beautiful and impenetrably terrifying, returns to her hometown as the world's richest woman. The locals hope her arrival signals a change in their fortunes, but they soon realise that prosperity will only come at a terrible price…Friedrich Dürrenmatt's visionary revenge play, one of the great achievements of modern German-language theatre, has been transported to mid-twentieth-century America by the acclaimed playwright Tony Kushner.   This revelatory new adaptation of The Visit opened in the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre, London, in February 2020, directed by Jeremy Herrin, and starring Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307974046069,"sku":"9781848429598","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781848429598_7d20bc12-63a4-4f1d-9ade-80327e29f367.jpg?v=1786034021"},{"product_id":"9780226836690","title":"Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Selected Writings, Volume 2, Fictions","description":"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.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311630201205,"sku":"9780226836690","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226836690_02f78170-693f-44cb-a837-7c67f01f1ba7.jpg?v=1786012429"},{"product_id":"the-judge-and-his-hangman","title":"The Judge and His Hangman","description":"A genre-bending  mystery recalling the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet and anticipating the  postmodern fictions of Paul Auster and other contemporary neo-noir  novelists.   Inspector Barlach forgoes the arrest of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive criminal. This is a thriller that brings existential philosophy and the detective genre into dazzling  convergence","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57487844082037,"sku":"9781782273417","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781782273417.jpg?v=1786355067"},{"product_id":"the-pledge","title":"The Pledge","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A book everybody should read' Jonathan Coe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Powerful and compelling' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e Crime Club\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Jaw-dropping' \u003ci\u003eCrime Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'As terse and assured as the best of Simenon' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe brilliant Inspector Matthäi is haunted by the case of a young girl brutally murdered in a Swiss mountain forest. Even after a man is arrested and confesses to the crime, Matthäi is convinced the real killer is still out there. He makes a promise to the girl's mother: he will stop at nothing to bring the murderer to justice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut Matthäi's pledge becomes an obsession, and soon he finds he is descending into the darkness himself...\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57487917384053,"sku":"9781805336440","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805336440.jpg?v=1790607999"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-friedrich-durrenmatt.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}