Synopses & Reviews
Arrested and imprisoned in a small Swiss town, a prisoner begins this book with an exclamation: "I'm not Stiller!" He claims that his name is Jim White, that he has been jailed under false charges and under the wrong identity. To prove he is who he claims to be, he confesses to three unsolved murders and recalls in great detail an adventuresome life in America and Mexico among cowboys and peasants, in back alleys and docks. He is consumed by "the morbid impulse to convince," but no one believes him.
This is a harrowing account—part Kafka, part Camus—of the power of self-deception and the freedom that ultimately lies in self-acceptance. Simultaneously haunting and humorous, I'm Not Stiller has come to be recognized as "one of the major post-war works of fiction" and a masterpiece of German literature.
Review
"A single consciousness contains multitudes: in fathoming it, Frisch evokes the complex reality of a dangerous and enthralling world." New Statesman
Review
"It exudes postwar high seriousness: it cannot wait to show off its many layers of meaning . . . Then comes the voice of Stiller himself: treacherous, evasive and compelling as an Edgar Allan Poe murderer or a Raymond Chandler detective . . . When the curtain comes down one last time on the life of Anatol Ludwig Stiller, it is truly harrowing: it is a spiritual blackout." The New York Times
Synopsis
"Readers cannot but feel the force of what remains one of the most important novels of the post-war years."—Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
A renowned novel of self-deceit and self-acceptance.Arrested and imprisoned in a small Swiss town, a prisoner begins this book with an exclamation: "I'm not Stiller " He claims that his name is Jim White, that he has been jailed under false charges and under the wrong identity. To prove he is who he claims to be, he confesses to three unsolved murders and recalls in great detail an adventuresome life in America and Mexico among cowboys and peasants, in back alleys and docks. He is consumed by "the morbid impulse to convince," but no one believes him. This is a harrowing account part Kafka, part Camus of the power of self-deception and the freedom that ultimately lies in self-acceptance. Simultaneously haunting and humorous, I'm Not Stiller has come to be recognized as "one of the major post-war works of fiction" and a masterpiece of German literature.
About the Author
Max Frisch was born in Zurich, Switzerland before the First World War and was a soldier in the Second. In the interwar years, he traveled throughout Eastern and Central Europe as a journalist. After serving as a gunner on the Austrian and Italian borders, he followed in his father's footsteps and became an architect. These experiences helped forge the moral consciousness and the concern for human freedom that mark his writing. The author of I'm Not Stiller, Homo Faber, Man in the Holocene, Montauk, and Gantenbein, Frisch was one of Europe's most important postwar writers.Michael Bullock taught for many years in the Creative Writing Department at the University of British Columbia. In addition to translating, he is a poet and fiction writer.