Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett was an Irish writer born on 13 April 1906 in Foxrock, near Dublin, and died on 22 December 1989. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, then moved to Paris, where he came to know James Joyce and eventually settled for most of his adult life. He wrote in both English and French, often translating his own work from one language into the other.

Beckett is best known for plays and novels that strip human life down to a few figures, a bare setting and spare, often comic speech. Waiting, memory, failing bodies and the difficulty of going on are recurring concerns. His drama changed what theatre could be, and he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Readers still value him for work that is bleak on the surface yet full of humour and tenderness.