From the Berlin Journal (The Seagull Library of German Literature) - Softcover

Frisch, Max; Strässle, Thomas; Unser, Margit; Hoban, Wieland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1803092149 ISBN 13: 9781803092140

Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd, 2023

Synopsis

The daily journal of a giant of German literature,  touching subjects ranging from everyday life to the political and social conditions in East Germany as viewed from West Berlin.

Max Frisch (1911–91) was a giant of twentieth-century German literature. When Frisch moved into a new apartment in Berlin’s Sarrazinstrasse, he began keeping a journal, which he came to call the Berlin Journal. A few years later, he emphasized in an interview that this was by no means a “scribbling book,” but rather a book “fully composed.” The journal is one of the great treasures of Frisch’s literary estate, but the author imposed a retention period of twenty years from the date of his death because of the “private things” he noted in it. From the Berlin Journal now marks the first publication of excerpts from Frisch’s journal. Here, the unmistakable Frisch is back, full of doubt, with no illusions, and with a playfully sharp eye for the world. 

From the Berlin Journal pulls from the years 1946–49 and 1966–71. Observations about the writer’s everyday life stand alongside narrative and essayistic texts, as well as finely-drawn portraits of colleagues like Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Wolf Biermann, and Christa Wolf, among others. Its foremost quality, though, is the extraordinary acuity with which Frisch observed political and social conditions in East Germany while living in West Berlin.

About this title

About the Author

Max Frisch (1911–91) was one of the giants of twentieth-century German literature, achieving fame as a novelist, playwright, diarist, and essayist. He lived primarily in Switzerland. He received many German and international literature prizes, including the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. Thomas Strässle is a lecturer in the German department and the department of general and comparative literature at the University of Zurich. Margit Unser is the director of the Max Frisch Archive at ETH-Bibliothek, Zurich. Wieland Hoban is a British composer who lives in Germany. He has translated several works from German, including many by Theodor W. Adorno.

Edition details

• Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1803092149
• ISBN 13: 9781803092140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 222