72 Facts About Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator.

Samuel Beckett's work became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of repetition and self-reference.

Samuel Beckett is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd.

Samuel Beckett was the first person to be elected Saoi of Aosdana in 1984.

Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock on 13 April 1906, the son of William Frank Beckett, a quantity surveyor of Huguenot descent, and Maria Jones Roe, a nurse.

Samuel Beckett's parents were both 35 when he was born, and had married in 1901.

Samuel Beckett's family home, Cooldrinagh, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court built in 1903 by Samuel Beckett's father.

Samuel Beckett left in 1923 and entered Trinity College Dublin, where he studied modern literature and Romance languages, and received his bachelor's degree in 1927.

Samuel Beckett was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926.

Samuel Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast, took up the post of lecteur d'anglais at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930.

Samuel Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became Finnegans Wake.

The next year he won a small literary prize for his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws on a biography of Rene Descartes that Samuel Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit.

In 1930, Samuel Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer.

Samuel Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience.

When Samuel Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career was at an end.

Samuel Beckett commemorated it with the poem "Gnome", which was inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and eventually published in The Dublin Magazine in 1934:.

Samuel Beckett spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust, his critical study of French author Marcel Proust.

Samuel Beckett published essays and reviews, including "Recent Irish Poetry" and "Humanistic Quietism", a review of his friend Thomas MacGreevy's Poems.

In describing these poets as forming "the nucleus of a living poetic in Ireland", Samuel Beckett was tracing the outlines of an Irish poetic modernist canon.

Nothing came of this as Samuel Beckett's letter was lost owing to Eisenstein's quarantine during the smallpox outbreak, as well as his focus on a script re-write of his postponed film production.

In 1936, a friend had suggested he look up the works of Arnold Geulincx, which Samuel Beckett did and he took many notes.

Murphy was finished in 1936 and Samuel Beckett departed for extensive travel around Germany, during which time he filled several notebooks with lists of noteworthy artwork that he had seen and noted his distaste for the Nazi savagery that was overtaking the country.

Samuel Beckett fell out with his mother, which contributed to his decision to settle permanently in Paris.

Samuel Beckett remained in Paris following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, preferring, in his own words, "France at war to Ireland at peace".

Samuel Beckett's was a known face in and around Left Bank cafes, where he strengthened his allegiance with Joyce and forged new ones with artists Alberto Giacometti and Marcel Duchamp, with whom he regularly played chess.

Sometime around December 1937, Samuel Beckett had a brief affair with Peggy Guggenheim, who nicknamed him "Oblomov".

In January 1938 in Paris, Samuel Beckett was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed when he refused the solicitations of a notorious pimp.

At a preliminary hearing, Samuel Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing.

Samuel Beckett was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance by the French government for his efforts in fighting the German occupation; to the end of his life Beckett would refer to his work with the French Resistance as "boy scout stuff".

Samuel Beckett started the novel in 1941 and completed it in 1945, but it was not published until 1953; however, an extract had appeared in the Dublin literary periodical Envoy.

Samuel Beckett described his experiences in an untransmitted radio script, "The Capital of the Ruins".

In 1945, Samuel Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit.

Samuel Beckett had felt that he would remain forever in the shadow of Joyce, certain to never beat him at his own game.

Samuel Beckett's revelation prompted him to change direction and to acknowledge both his own stupidity and his interest in ignorance and impotence:.

Samuel Beckett was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that.

Samuel Beckett later explained to Knowlson that the missing words on the tape are "precious ally".

Samuel Beckett began to write his fourth novel, Mercier et Camier, which was not published until 1970.

Samuel Beckett worked on the play between October 1948 and January 1949.

Blin's knowledge of French theatre and vision alongside Samuel Beckett knowing what he wanted the play to represent contributed greatly to its success.

Samuel Beckett refused to allow the play to be translated into film but did allow it to be played on television.

Samuel Beckett translated all of his works into English himself, with the exception of Molloy, for which he collaborated with Patrick Bowles.

Samuel Beckett went on to write successful full-length plays, including, Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days, and Play.

In 1961, Samuel Beckett received the International Publishers' Formentor Prize in recognition of his work, which he shared that year with Jorge Luis Borges.

Samuel Beckett continued writing sporadically for radio and extended his scope to include cinema and television.

Samuel Beckett began to write in English again, although he wrote in French until the end of his life.

Samuel Beckett bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet about 60 kilometres northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals.

Samuel Beckett seems to have been immediately attracted by her and she to him.

In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, Samuel Beckett heard that he had won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Samuel Beckett was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward.

Samuel Beckett shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation.

Samuel Beckett had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular.

Similar elements are present in Samuel Beckett's first published novel, Murphy, which explores the themes of insanity and chess.

Watt, written while Samuel Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes but less exuberant in its style.

Esslin argued these plays were the fulfilment of Albert Camus's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Samuel Beckett is often falsely labelled as an existentialist.

Samuel Beckett experienced something of a renaissance with the novella Company, which continued with Ill Seen Ill Said and Worstward Ho, later collected in Nohow On.

Samuel Beckett debuted End of Day in Dublin in 1962, revising it as Beginning To End.

Samuel Beckett wrote the radio play Embers and the teleplay Eh Joe specifically for MacGowran.

The actor appeared in various productions of Waiting for Godot and Endgame, and did several readings of Samuel Beckett's plays and poems on BBC Radio; he recorded the LP, MacGowran Speaking Samuel Beckett for Claddagh Records in 1966.

Samuel Beckett went on to write many of his experimental theatre works for her.

Sometimes as a director Samuel Beckett comes out with absolute gems and I use them a lot in other areas.

Samuel Beckett worked with him on such plays as Happy Days and Krapp's Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre.

Samuel Beckett opened up the possibility of theatre and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of time and place to focus on essential components of the human condition.

Samuel Beckett has had a wider influence on experimental writing since the 1950s, from the Beat generation to the happenings of the 1960s and after.

Samuel Beckett is one of the most widely discussed and highly prized of 20th-century authors, inspiring a critical industry to rival that which has sprung up around James Joyce.

The estate has a controversial reputation for maintaining firm control over how Samuel Beckett's plays are performed and does not grant licences to productions that do not adhere to the writer's stage directions.

Some best-known pictures of Samuel Beckett were taken by photographer John Minihan, who photographed him between 1980 and 1985 and developed such a good relationship with the writer that he became, in effect, his official photographer.

In La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, the town where Samuel Beckett had a cottage, the public library and one of the local high schools bear his name.

Happy Days Enniskillen International Samuel Beckett Festival is an annual multi-arts festival celebrating the work and influence of Samuel Beckett.

The festival, founded in 2011, is held at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland where Samuel Beckett spent his formative years studying at Portora Royal School.

In 1983, the Samuel Beckett Award was established for writers who, in the opinion of a committee of critics, producers and publishers, showed innovation and excellence in writing for the performing arts.

In January 2019 Samuel Beckett was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time.

In 2022 James Marsh filmed a biopic of Samuel Beckett entitled Dance First, with Gabriel Byrne and Fionn O'Shea playing Samuel Beckett at different stages of his life.