Samuel Beckett Biography

Irish Playwright, Poet and Novelist, Famous for Waiting for Godot

Oct 14, 2009

Brief biography of Irish writer Samuel Beckett, influential British writer of the 20th century, leading dramatist and Nobel laureate in literature.

Samuel Beckett was one of the most important and influential writes of the 20th century. He is best known as the leading playwright of the 1950s movement called the theatre of the absurd. He is famous for Waiting for Godot that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He also won the Prix Formentor in 1961.

Early Life of Samuel Beckett

Born in Dublin on April 13, 1906, he was brought up in a middle-class, Protestant household. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, he visited Paris in 1929, where he began writing.

He then taught English there, where he first met his lifelong friend, James Joyce. He returned to Trinity College at the age of 24, but decided that he disliked academic life. So Beckett took off on his travels around Europe.

Beckett's Mid-Life Years

Several years later, Beckett settled in Paris hoping to earn a living as a writer. During the Second World War, Beckett became a member of the French Resistance, fighting against the German occupation of France.

Beckett's first full-length novel, Murphy, was written in English and published when he was 32. Most of the works that followed were written in French and then translated into English, including the important trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable.

Beckett's Waiting for Godot

The French play En attendant Godot (1952,) translated in English, Waiting for Godot (1954,) tells the story of two tramps, whiling away the time as they wait in vain for Godot, the enigmatic man. This is Beckett's vision of certain emptiness in human condition.

Beckett's presentation, however, is such that he manages to inject a kind of wit that keeps the tone of the play less empty but more witty. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame.

Insight to Beckett's Literary Work

Samuel Beckett's works are complex, and they deal with difficult questions. His theme is often dark, and characters seem to be full of despair about death and people's failure to communicate with each other. As he grew older, his later plays became even more strange, something of preferential jokes. For example, Breath, written when he was 64-years-old, consists of a pile of rubbish, a breath and a cry.

Despite the dreary side and his use of absurd humour with a despairing message, Beckett's works have been considered belonging to theatre's greatest comedies. He died on December 22, 1989, at the age of 83.

Books by Samuel Beckett

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