A work of exceptional range, by the noted author of "I'm Not Stiller," this "sketchbook" combines a fascinating variety of material, part fictional, part autobiographical, part Socratic. It constitutes a new art form, immensely stimulating through its shifts of prism, including:

A series of startling questions that probe attitudes toward marriage, women, friendship, property, death, and so on (Are you afraid of the poor? Why not?)

Interrogations about the use of violence for political ends

Reports on a society for self-determined euthanasia

A number of short stories

Impressions of trips abroad, two to Russia, two to America (the last of which describes lunch at the White House with Henry Kissinger)

Recollections of meetings with Bertolt Brecht as well as a series of candid portraits of Gunter Grass, before and after fame.

Frisch, a Swiss, considers contemporary society with the mind of a highly intelligent, observant, and troubled liberal, sharply, wryly, reflectively.

Hailed as a masterpiece by German critics, the book became an instant and long-lived best-seller in the original edition.