Three Radio Plays By Ingeborg Bachmann, Translated by Lilian Friedberg. Afterword by Sarah J. Colvin

"Each play deals with a certain aspect of our human condition, embedded in the framework of the world around us. In "The Good God of Manhattan," for example Jan, a man "from the Old World" encounters Jennifer, a woman "from the new world" in Manhattan, where they fall prey to the perils of love and share the fate of lovers throughout time and place. "The Cicadas" is the tale of the "marooned" where the isolation of the island as an escape from the real world is symbolized in the Cicada's song. Though the setting is never stated explicitly in "A Deal with Dreams," we assume it is Vienna, the "City of Dreams." Here, dreams are for sale in a shady "deal" offered in the dim light of a pawnshop on a city street. In the end, we learn that the price of dreams is high.
Ingeborg Bachmann is one of the best-known Austrian women writers of the 20th century. The three radio plays presented in this volume are classic components of the vast Bachmann legacy. "A Deal in Dreams" (1952), "The Cicadas" (1955) and "The Good God of Manhattan" (1958) were written and produced early in Bachmann's career and demonstrate both her skills as poet and prose writer. Bachmann was awarded the Radio Play Prize of the German War Blind in 1959 for "The Good God of Manhattan.""