Herr Lenz is perhaps regarded most highly for the distinction of his contributions to the short story and the novel; it is in these fields that his major publications have so far lain. His most recent book, this collection of four radio-plays [Haussuchung], illustrates something of the imaginative range to be found also in his prose fiction. Precision, care and felicitous craftsmanship reveal themselves in the neatly rounded construction of these works, where dialogue and scene-sequence are presented economically and convincingly….

The author has the gift of making his reader feel quickly at home in his imagined world and of proceeding without further delay to sustaining our interest in this world by a sequence of surprises and a continuity of tension. His sympathies are with the oppressed and frustrated, but can extend also to the representatives of a society that he is satirizing (Das schönste Fest der...