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September 8, 1933

 

Michael Frayn, the British writer, born on September 8, 1933, has achieved critical success as a novelist as well as a playwright. His play Copenhagen (1998) plays with the possibilities inherent in a 1941 meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. This list of awards Copenhagen won is not inclusive: The Critics' Circle Theatre Awards (1998) , the (American) Tony Award (2000) and, New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play of the 1999-2000 Season.

In his writing Frayn exhibits the philosophical curiosity that prompted him to major in philosophy at Cambridge. He graduated in 1957. We see this concern in his book on the relation of language and reality,  The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe (2008). Here Frayn analyzes what the dimension of language adds to the cosmos. Our excerpt is just a part of this inquiry:

...Could one imagine identifying all tastes forever just purely as tastes? [Animals must since] the cat...drinks the milk but not the whitewash....

Frayn's latest book is a memoir, My Father's Fortune: A Life, (2011).

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