Having started publishing in the 1970s, E. Y. Meyer belongs to the so-called third generation of German-Swiss writers since World War II--Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt constituting the first generation, the writers who began publishing in the 1960s the second. Almost all of Meyer's fiction is set in precisely defined Swiss locations, but the problems he addresses transcend this local framework. Meyer's novels, stories, essays, and plays take issue with the development of the modern world. On the one hand, he believes that Western society in the second half of the twentieth century is the prisoner of an ethical outlook, derived from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which places exclusive emphasis on the duty of the individual to compete and to achieve; the idea that self-fulfillment may be attained through enjoyment of life and pleasure in what it offers is at best tolerated peripherally. The individual...