Max Frisch, Mein Name sei Gantenbein [A Wilderness of Mirrors]

Judith Ricker-Abderhalden (University of Arkansas)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.2: German-language Writing and Culture: Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, 800-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1964

Places

Switzerland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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In the vast corpus of Max Frisch, the most celebrated Swiss writer of the twentieth century,

Mein Name sei Gantenbein

[

A Wilderness of Mirrors

, 1964] is one of only two texts subtitled “Roman” or “novel” by the author.

Gantenbein

continues to explore the uneasy fascination with problems of personal identity characteristic of much of this corpus in general, and radically extends the device of the unreliable narrator introduced in the earlier novel

Stiller

[

I’m not Stiller

, 1954]. Together with its counterpart for the stage,

Biografie: Ein Spiel

[

Biography: A Game

, 1967],

Gantenbein

marks the outer limit of Frisch’s formal experimentation with conventional genres. The novel’s reception by critics and the general public remains accordingly mixed, but the audacity of its…

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1367 words

Citation: Ricker-Abderhalden, Judith. "Mein Name sei Gantenbein". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 January 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13983, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Max Frisch, Mein Name sei Gantenbein [A Wilderness of Mirrors]

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

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