Samuel Beckett
(1906-1989), PlaywrightSamuel Barclay Beckett
Sitter in 42 portraits
Born in Dublin Beckett studied modern European Literature at Trinity College, Dublin (1923-1927). From 1932 he lived mainly in Paris becoming closely associated with James Joyce. His plays and novels, mostly written first in French, deliver a reductive view of human existence, and have been internationally influential. They include the novel trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnamable (1953), and the plays Waiting for Godot (premiered in Paris in 1953 and first staged in London in 1955), Endgame (1957), Krapp's Last Tape(1959), Happy Days (1961) and Not I(1973). Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
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