The Assignment: or, On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers (Heritage of Sociology)

Durrenmatt, Friedrich

ISBN 10: 0226174468 / ISBN 13: 9780226174464

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2008

Beschreibung

Unmarked. Translated from the German by Joel Agee. Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski. Originally published in 1986, this novel explores topics found in today's headlines: terrorism, revolutionary activities, border clashes, secret weapon tests, spy satellites, and more. 129p.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 28164

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: The Assignment: or, On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers (Heritage of Sociology)
• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0226174468
• ISBN-13: 9780226174464
• Einband: Paperback
• Zustand: Very Good
• Gewicht: 8 Unzen
• Verkäuferkataloge:
  • Fiction

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

In Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s experimental thriller The Assignment, the wife of a psychiatrist has been raped and killed near a desert ruin in North Africa. Her husband hires a woman named F. to reconstruct the unsolved crime in a documentary film. F. is soon unwittingly thrust into a paranoid world of international espionage where everyone is watched—including the watchers. After discovering a recent photograph of the supposed murder victim happily reunited with her husband, F. becomes trapped in an apocalyptic landscape riddled with political intrigue, crimes of mistaken identity, and terrorism.

F.’s labyrinthine quest for the truth is Dürrenmatt’s fictionalized warning against the dangers of a technologically advanced society that turns everyday life into one of constant scrutiny. Joel Agee’s elegant translation will introduce a fresh generation of English-speaking readers to one of European literature’s masters of language, suspense, and dystopia.

“The narrative is accelerated from the start. . . . As the novella builds to its horripilating climax, we realize the extent to which all values have thereby been inverted. The Assignment is a parable of hell for an age consumed by images.”—New York Times Book Review

“His most ambitious book . . . dark and devious . . . almost obsessively drawn to mankind’s most fiendish crimes.”—Chicago Tribune

“A tour-de-force . . . mesmerizing.”—Village Voice

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-90) is the author of several books published by the University of Chicago Press, including The Pledge. Joel Agee has translated numerous German authors into English, including Heinrich von Kleist, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Elias Canetti. In 2005 he received the Modern Language Association's Lois Roth Award for his translation of Hans Erich Nossack's The End: Hamburg 1943.