The Swiss novelist and dramatist Max Frisch (1911-1991) explored the nature of human identity, individuality, and responsibility. His work is characterized by an ironic depiction of the issues confronting man in a technological society.

Max Frisch was born May 15, 1911, in Zurich and raised in a conventional middle-class milieu. His father's sudden death in 1933 forced him to abandon his studies in Germanic philology and literature at the University of Zurich and become a journalist to support himself and his mother. He wrote primarily about sporting events for newspapers, but his work allowed him to travel widely. An assignment on the Dalmatian coast inspired his first novel, Jürg Reinhardt: Eine sommerliche Schicksalsfahrt (Jürg Reinhardt: A Summer's Journey) (1934), which later was shortened considerably to serve as the initial portion of the author's extended prose fiction J'adore ce qui me brûle--oder die Schwierigen (1943). These two narratives...