Irish novelist and playwright, one of the great names of Absurd Theatre with Eugéne Ionesco, although recent study regards Beckett as postmodernist. His play are concerned with human suffering, survival, where characters are strugglimg with meaninglessness and the world of the Nothing. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin into a prosperous Protestant family. He was educated at the Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he took a B.A. degree in 1927, having specialized in French and Italian. Beckett worked then as a teacher in Belfast and lecturer in English at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. During this time he became a friend of James Joyce and translated under his supervision into French a fragment of Finnegans Wake.

In 1931 Becket returned to Dublin and received his M.A. in 1931. He taught French at Trinity College until 1932, when he resigned to devote his time entirely to writing. After his father died Beckett received an annuity that enabled him to settle in London, where he underwent psychoanalysis (1935-36).

As a poet Becket made his debut in 1930 with WHOROSCOPE, a ninety-eight-line poem accompanied by seventeen footnotes. It was followed with a collection of essays, PROUST (1931) and novel MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS (1934). From 1933 to 1936 he lived in London. Around this time he met Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, whom he married in 1961.

When World War II broke out, Beckett was in Ireland, but he hastened to Paris and joined a Resistance network. Sought by the Nazis he fled with Dechevaux-Dumesnil to Southern France. He worked as country labourer and wrote WATT, his second novel, which was published in 1953.

After the war Beckett worked briefly with the Irish Red Cross in Paris. Between 1946 and 1949 he produced the major prose narrative trilogy, MOLLOY, MALONE MEURT, and L'INNOMMABLE, which appeared in the early 1950s. The novels were written in French and subsequently translated into English. EN ATTENDANT GODOT (Waiting for Godot), written in 1949 and published in English in 1954, brought Beckett international fame and established him as one of the leading names of the theatre of the absurd. In the 1950s he published FIN DE PARTIE (1957), ENDGAME (1958), which developed further one of Beckett's central themes, men in mutual dependence (Hamm and Clov occupy a room with Nagg and Nell who are in dustbins), and KNAPP'S LAST TAPE (1959), where he returned to his native language.

In the 1960s Beckett wrote for radio, theater, and television. In the 1970s he wrote MIRLITONNADES (1978), a collection of shoert poems, COMPANY (1979) and ALL STRANGE AWAY (1979), which was performed in 1984 in New York.

En attendant Godot (1953; Waiting for Godot) - Tragi-comedy in two acts. Two tramps, Vladimir ansd Estragon, who call each other Ggo and Didi, meet near a bare tree on a country road. They wait for the promised arrival of Godot. To fill the boredom they try to recall their past, tell jokes, eat, and speculate about Godot. Pozzo, a bourgeois tyrant, and Lucky, his servant, appear briefly. Godot sends word that he will not come that day but will surely come the next. In Act II Gogo and Didi still wait, and Godot sends a promising message. Gogo and Didi try to hang themselves and then declare their intention of leaving, but they have no energy to move.

Trivia: Whe Beckett won the Nobel Prize, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil commented: 'This is a catasthrope.'

NOTE: Billie Whitelaw (1932-) became in the 1960s a noted interpreter of Samuel Beckett's works. Her performances include Play, Not I, and Footfalls. She has also acted in such films as Frency (written by Anthony Shaffer, dir. by Alfred Hitchcock, 1972), The Omen (1976), The Water Babies (1979), Maurice (based on E. M. Forster's posthumously published novel, dir. by James Ivory, 1987), and The Krays (1990).

For further reading: Samuel Beckett by J. Friedman (1970); Beckett by A. Alvarez (1973); Samuel Beckett: A Biography by Deirdre Bairs (1978); Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist by Anthony Cronin (1966); Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson (1966)

Selected works:

• OUR EXAGMINATION ROUND HIS FACTIFICATION FOR INCAMINATION OF WORK IN PROGRESS, 1929
• WHOHOSCOPE, 1930
• PROUST, 1931
• MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS, 1934
• ECHO'S BONES, 1935
• MURPHY, 1938
• MOLLOY, 1951
• MALONE MEURT, 1951 - Malone Dies
• L'INNOMMABLE, 1953 - The Unnamable
• EN ATTENDANT GODOT, 1952 - Waiting for Godot
• WATT, 1953
• NOUVELLES ET TEXTES POUR RIEN, 1955
• FIN DE PARTIE, 1957 - Endgame
• THE UNNAMEABLE, 1958
• FROM AN ABANDONED WORK, 1958
• BRAM VAN VELDE, 1958
• ACTE SANS PAROLES, 1958
• KRAPP'S LAST TAPE, 1959
• ALL THAT FALL, 1959
• HAPPY DAYS, 1961
• COMMENT C'EST, 1961 - How it is
• WORDS AND MUSIC, 1962
• ACTE SANS PAROLES II, 1963
• CASCANDO, 1963
• PLAY, 1964

IMAGINATION MORTE IMAGINEZ, 1965
• ASSEZ, 1966
• BING, 1966
• FILM, 1967
• VA ET VIENT, 1967 - Come and Go
• NO KNIFE, 1967
• EH JOE, 1967
• L'ISSUE, 1968
• SANS, 1968
• BREATH, 1970
• PREMIER AMOUR, 1970
• SÉJOUR, 1970
• LE DÉPEUPLER, 1971
• BREATH AND OTHER SHORT PLAYS, 1972
• ABANDONNE, 1972
• THE NORTH, 1972
• NOR I, 1973
• STILL, 1974
• MERCIER ET CAMIER, 1974
• ALL STRANGE AWAY, 1976
• GHOST TRIO, 1976
• THAT TIME, 1976
• ROUGH FOR THEATRE I, 1976
• ROUGH FOR RADIO I, 1976
• ROUGH FOR RADIO II, 1976
• FOR TO WEND YET AGAIN AND OTHER FIZZLES, 1976
• FOUR NOVELLAS, 1977
• ... BUT THE CLOUDS..., 1977 MIRLITONNADES, 1978
• COMPANY, 1979
• ALL STRANGE AWAY, 1979
• NOHOW ON, 1981
• ROCKABY, 1982
• OHIO IMPROMPTU, 1982
• A PIECE OF MONOLOGUE, 1982
• ILL SEEN ILL SAID, 1982
• WORSTWARD HO, 1983
• WHAT WHERE, 1983
• NACHT UND TRÄUME, 1983
• THE COLLECTER SHORTER PLAYS OF SAMUEL BECKETT, 1984
• QUAD, 1984
• CATASTROPHE, 1984
• COMPLETE DRAMATIC WORKS, 1986
• HOMMAGE À JACK B. YEATS, 1988
• TELEPLAYS, 1988
• LE MONDE ET LE PANTALON, 1989
• STIRRING STILL, 1989
• DREAM OF FAIR TO MIDDLING WOMEN, 1992

Compiled by Kuusankoski Public Library, Finland (© 1997) and René Märtin (© 1998-2001).