Sketchbooks, 1946-1949: (The Swiss List)

A new translation of one of the earliest volumes of Max Frisch's innovative notebooks. Throughout his life, the great Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch (1911-1991) kept a series of diaries, or sketchbooks, as they came to be known in English. First published in English translation in the 1970s, these sketchbooks played a major role in establishing Frisch as, according to the New York Times, "the most innovative, varied and hard-to-categorize of all major contemporary authors." His diaries, said the Times, "read like novels and his best novels are written like diaries." Now Seagull Books presents the first unabridged English translation of Sketchbooks, 1946-1949 in a new translation by Simon Pare. This edition reinstates material omitted from the 1977 edition, including a screenplay for an unmade film. In this first volume, which covers the years 1946 to 1949, Frisch chronicles the intellectual and material situation in postwar Europe from the vantage point of a citizen of a neutral, German-speaking country. His notes on travels to the scarred cities of Germany, to Austria, France, Italy, Prague, Wroclaw, and Warsaw paint a complex and stimulating picture of a continent emerging from the rubble as new fault lines are drawn between East and West. As Frisch completes his final architectural projects and garners early success as a writer, he reflects on theater, language, and writing, and he sketches the outlines of plays, including The Fire Raisers and Count OEderland. Whatever experience he chronicles in the sketchbook-whether it's a Bastille Day party, an Italian fish market, or a tightrope display amid the ruins of Frankfurt or an afternoon by Lake Zurich with Bertolt Brecht, to take just a few examples-his keen dramatist's eye immerses the reader in the setting while also probing the deeper significance and motivations underlying the scene. This new translation will serve to draw out the immediacy and contemporary quality of Frisch's observations from the shadow of his status as a classic author, bringing his work to life for a new audience.

Table of Contents:
1946 Zurich, Cafe de la Terrasse Marion and the marionettes Cafe de la Terrasse Postscript to Marion (Marion and the angel) Cafe de la Terrasse Basel, March Marion and the ghost Munich, April Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image Between Nuremberg and Wurzburg The Andorran Jew Frankfurt, May On being a writer Harlaching, May On being a writer Travelling, May Cafe de la Terrasse On Marion Postscript to the journey On Marion (Marion at the exhibition) After a flight Politeness Cafe de la Terrasse On theatre (the frame) Cafe de la Terrasse On theatre (the forestage) In the newspaper (about the cashier) By the lake Count OEderland (seven scenes) Genoa, October Portofino Mare, October Cafe Delfino On the beach Reading (unfinished work) Portofino Monte Milan, October The Chinese Wall (dress rehearsal) Calendar story Cafe Odeon Pfannenstiel Draft letter 1947 On marionettes Davos Travelling To Maja Prague, March Prague Hradcin Prague Nuremberg, March At home Cafe de la Terrasse Pfannenstiel (Albin Zollinger) Marion and the angel Letzigraben, August Portofino, September On architecture Florence, October Travelling Siena, October Travelling Cafe Odeon (nihilism) Letzigraben Travelling Zurich, 9.11.1947 On the train Frankfurt, November On being a writer On the train Berlin, November Letzigraben Postscript (the Russian officer and the German woman) On lyric poetry Letzigraben Travelling 1948 Vienna, January Prague, January Reading (Carlo Levi) Cafe Odeon Burlesque Cafe Odeon Pfannenstiel Cafe Odeon Frankfurt, April On theatre (the theatrical) Berlin, April On being a writer Berlin, May Letzigraben Cafe Odeon Travelling Paris, July Autobiography Paris, July Letzigraben Brecht Prague, 23.8.1948 On being a writer Wroclaw, 24.8.-27.8.1948 Warsaw, 28.8.-3.9.1948 Letzigraben Postscript to the journey Actors Frankfurt, November Arabesque Hamburg, November Letzigraben Cafe Odeon Letzigraben 1949 New Year's Day (kindness) Zurich, 8.1. 1949 (Premiere of When the War was Over) Letzigraben (with Brecht) Reviews Basel, Carnival Stuttgart, 29.4.1949 Letzigraben Story Letzigraben Cafe Odeon Travelling The Harlequin, outline for a film Kampen, July Reminiscence Westerland Kampen, August Hamburg, September Travelling Jealousy Cafe Odeon More on jealousy Arles, October Sketch (Schinz) At the office Cafe Odeon

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. Simon Pare is a translator from French and German living near Zurich.

Review :
“The first, spanning 1946 to ’49, emerged by necessity, when Frisch’s design practice didn’t permit him the leisure to write at length. But with a second volume (1966 to ’71) and a posthumous third (written in the early 1980s), the sketchbook became his trademark form, and one that now, in our vogue for the private and motley, gives the once world-famous, now rather neglected Frisch a new life. Thanks to the independent Indian publisher Seagull, whose bold cosmopolitanism never ceases to impress, all three are now in print once more, the first two recently retranslated by Simon Pare, and the last translated for the first time by Mike Mitchell in 2013. The translations are limpid and engaging. . . . What’s revealed in these sketchbooks is just that patient good sense, an unflappable, unapologetic humanity—though marked by an ambivalent quietism, an old-world politeness, a concreteness and skepticism that can only be described as Swiss.”