The Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) is one of the most important dramatists in the German-speaking world. Now with his critically acclaimed plays translated, Dürrenmatt becomes available 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”.

身為瑞士最重要的作家之一，狄倫馬特在國際上亦享有盛譽，這主要歸功於他的戲劇作品和許多被改編成電影的偵探小說。
狄倫馬特於40年代晚期至60年代間，對德語界的戲劇發展有非常大的貢獻。他的戲劇作品反映了悲劇與喜劇緊緊相連，荒謬且真實的生活舞台世界。
他的名聲主要歸功於兩部悲喜劇: 1956年的《老婦還鄉》，劇中描述億萬富婆克萊爾回到自己家鄉，並以金錢勢力引誘與收買鎮民們的良心和道德；以及1962年的《物理學家》， 探討科學發明被政治所利用並對世界可能造成的危害。