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Die Schweiz - ein Gefängnis
Im Warenkorb

Switzerland - A Prison

Speech on Václav Havel
Published by Diogenes as Die Schweiz - ein Gefängnis
Original Title: Die Schweiz – ein Gefängnis

On 22 November 1990, on the eve of Switzerland’s 700th anniversary and shortly before his own death, Friedrich Dürrenmatt gave an official speech in tribute to his friend and colleague Václav Havel – President of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, writer and former dissident. In his address, Dürrenmatt – a socio-political »enlightener« not just in others’ eyes, but his own, too – contrasted Switzerland’s romanticized self-image with the reality of its identity crisis and concrete political shortcomings. Using the country as an example, he describes a situation that he expressed in conversation with Michael Haller as the following: »Nowadays, people are struggling to trust their thought processes. After all, the knowledge we possess about the state of the world is hard to bear. That's why they prefer to believe: some in this, others in that.« This is a theme which pervades Dürrenmatt’s writing like a basso continuo, from his earliest prose to the essays of his later work: the human being who no longer understands the labyrinthine relationships of life, power and state, and flees into idealization instead of seeking and demanding enlightenment.

The volume also includes a speech by the Swiss Minister of Defense, Federal Councillor Adolf Ogi, on Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the free individual: »He had the courage to take his own standpoint. A courage that can be dangerous, even in a democracy.«


General Fiction
80 pages
1997

978-3-257-22952-3

World rights are handled by Diogenes

»A book that shows us the necessity of the writer’s word, both within and for society.«

 

Bayerisches Fernsehen, Munich