An Answer from the Silence
When this novel begins, the protagonist has just turned thirty, is engaged to be married and about to start work as a teacher. Frightened by the idea of settling down, he journeys to the Alps in a do-or-die effort to climb the unclimbed North Ridge, and by doing so prove he is not ordinary. However, he returns not in triumph but in frostbitten shock, having come dangerously close to death.
This personal early novel reflects a crisis in Max Frisch’s own life, and perhaps because of this intimate connection, he refused to allow it to be included in his Collected Works in the 1970s. Now available in English, this distinctive book will thrill fans of Frisch’s other works.
Swiss writer Max Frisch (1911–91) was one of the giants of twentieth-century literature, achieving fame as a novelist, playwright, diarist, and essayist. His works include Andorra, I’m Not Stiller, A Wilderness of Mirrors and Man in the Holocene. Frisch was one of the founders of Gruppe Olten, and was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1986.