''Mars'' is an autobiographical book by Fritz Angst (1944–1976) under the pseudonym Fritz Zorn. It was first published in 1977.

Adolf Muschg Adolf Muschg (born 13 May 1934) is a Swiss writer and professor of literature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten. Biography Adolf Muschg was born in Zollikon, canton of Zürich, Switzerland. He studied German studies, English studies a ...

wrote its long and engaged foreword. The book was reviewed in the book review section of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', which says that the author's pseudonym of "Fritz Zorn" literally means "Angry Fritz". In the book, written after the author was diagnosed with

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, Zorn describes and criticizes his environment, entourage, and upbringing in one of the wealthiest lakeshore neighborhoods of Zurich, Switzerland, where he says he was "educated to death". Zorn laments his "unlived life": though he apparently became successful in the eyes of the bourgeoisie (he attended university and became a teacher), his whole life was "wrong". He suffered from depression and never had friends or a girlfriend. The book saw significant success in Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but was not well received in the late 1980s nor in English translation. ''The New York Times'' reviewed it harshly, saying the author's experience with cancer did "not confer acuity or wisdom – only pain, suffering and despair". The review wonders why the book was published at all, referring to it as "whining" and saying it "continues for 143 pages of almost sadistic tedium". The author believed that cancer was psychosomatic, caused by mental pain and repressed emotions, a theme which became popular in several self-help books of the time. The book has been translated into several languages. Alex and Daniel Varenne developed a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

based on the book in 1988, and Darius Peyamiras wrote and directed a play drawn from it in 2001.

References

1976 non-fiction books Swiss autobiographies {{lit-bio-book-stub

Further reading

References