Swiss architect, writer, playwright.
Born into an architect's family in Zurich, Switzerland, where he spent most of his life. Max Frisch was awarded various prizes and honorary doctorates from many universities.
After graduating, he studied German studies, but soon dropped out and worked as a journalist for various newspapers. In 1933, he spent several months travelling as a reporter in south-eastern Europe. He described his impressions of the trip in his first novel, Jurgas Reinhartas. A Fateful Summer Journey". From 1936 to 1941, Frisch studied architecture at the ETH Zurich. During his studies, he began to keep a diary, which he kept for several decades. This diary was very important for his entire oeuvre. After graduating, he won the competition for the design of an open-air swimming pool in 1942 and opened his own office in the same year. At the same time, he was working on a novel entitled 'Difficult People'. He soon married Gertrude Constanze von Mejenburg, with whom he had 3 children. In the mid-1950s, Frisch wrote two plays in a few weeks. Other dramas were staged at the Zurich theatre.
The plays he wrote made Max Frisch famous as a writer, but it was three novels that really made him famous: "Stiller", "Homo faber" and "Suppose I Gantenbein". In 1955, Frisch closed his architectural office and devoted himself entirely to writing. His plays Byderman and the Arsonists and Andorra were acclaimed in the theatre. Both are the most frequently performed German plays of the twentieth century. Max Frisch has travelled extensively, visiting Spain, Mexico, the USA and Arab countries, and from 1960 to 1965 lived mainly in Rome. There he lived for a while with Ingeborg Bachman until he met Marian Olers, who became his second wife in 1968. The two love affairs were reflected in the autobiographical short story "Montauk", considered the most significant work of his late career.
