Why Beckett

About this book

Theatre Journal Since Enoch Braters essential study of Samuel Becketts life and works was originally published before Beckett died the author has taken the opportunity of this paperback reprint to bring his subject up to date. Beckett was undoubtedly a difficult writer and one of the virtues of this biography is to give the general reader easier access to all aspects of his work particularly the more elliptic theater and prose pieces of his later years. Brater follows Becketts career from the early days in Ireland to the efllorescence in his chosen expatriate home in France just after the Second World War and beyond that to his success in the rest of the world as a result of the universal appeal of his cryptic moving play Waiting for Godot. Brater emphasizes the Irish rhythms in Becketts writing and examines at all stages the intriguing relationship between his fiction and his compositions for theater film and television. Supported by a generous selection of photographs including many examples of Beckett productions in all parts of the world this is the indispensable guide to understanding one of the literary geniuses of the twentieth century.