born May 15, 1911, Zürich, Switz.
died April 4, 1991, Zürich
Swiss dramatist and novelist.
Originally a journalist, he later worked as an architect, a career he abandoned for writing in 1955. He is noted for his Expressionist depictions of the moral dilemmas of 20th-century life. His early drama Santa Cruz (1947) established the central theme of his subsequent works: the predicament of the complicated, skeptical individual in modern society. Other plays include The Chinese Wall (1947), The Fire Raisers (1958), and Andorra (1961). Among his novels are I'm Not Stiller (1954), Homo Faber (1957), A Wilderness of Mirrors (1964), and Man in the Holocene (1979).