Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Born the son of a Protestant pastor near Bern, Dürrenmatt briefly studied philosophy and theology before turning to writing plays and fiction, supporting himself early on as a cartoonist. He became Switzerland's leading postwar dramatist, his lifelong friendship and rivalry with Max Frisch shaping much of the country's literary culture.

The Pledge (1958), subtitled 'Requiem for the Detective Novel,' grew out of a film script Dürrenmatt found unsatisfying and rewrote as fiction to correct: a retired police inspector, convinced a confessed killer is innocent, stakes his career and sanity on solving the real case through pure reason, only for sheer chance to render his logic meaningless.

He settled in Neuchâtel for the rest of his life, continuing to write plays, prose, and essays skeptical of any tidy resolution to human affairs, and died there in 1990.