Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote detective novels where the detective fails. The crime goes unsolved. Justice doesn't arrive. He called it "the worst possible turn" — his signature move was taking whatever the audience expected and torching it. His play "The Visit" has a billionaire return to her hometown and offer the citizens a fortune to murder the man who wronged her decades earlier. They say no. Then slowly, one by one, they start buying new shoes. Dürrenmatt believed the modern world was too absurd for tragedy — only grotesque comedy could capture it. He was right more often than anyone wanted to admit.
January 5, 1921
105 years ago
What Else Happened on January 5
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