TEHRAN – A Persian translation of “The Execution of Justice” (“Justiz”) by Friedrich Durrenmatt has recently been published by Borj Publications in Tehran. 

The book has been translated into Persian by Mahmud Hosseinizad.

A respected professor is dead - shot in a crowded Zurich restaurant, in front of dozens of witnesses. The murderer calmly turned himself in to the police. So why has he now hired a lawyer to clear his name? And why has he chosen the drink-soaked, disreputable Spat to defend him? As he investigates, Spat finds himself obsessed, drawn ever deeper into a case of baffling complexity until he reaches a deadly conclusion: justice can be restored only by a crime. This is a captivating neo-noir classic from the master of the genre. 

“The Execution of Justice” is a dark, wicked satire on the legal system and a disturbing, if ambivalent, allegory on guilt, justice, violence and morality.

Durrenmatt was born in the Emmental (canton of Bern), the son of a Protestant pastor. His grandfather Ulrich Durrenmatt was a conservative politician. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Durrenmatt began to study philosophy, and German language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester. In 1943 he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. 

In 1945-46, he wrote his first play, “It is written”. On October 11, 1946, he married actress Lotti Geissler. She died in 1983 and Durrenmatt was married again to another actress, Charlotte Kerr, the following year.

He was a proponent of epic theater whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author gained fame largely due to his avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire. One of his leading sentences was: “A story is not finished until it has taken the worst turn”. 

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of Friedrich Durrenmatt’s “The Execution of Justice”.

RM/MMS/YAW