Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was born in Ireland and wrote plays, prose, essays and poetry, both in English and French. He is considered to be one of the most important twentieth-century dramatists and the father of the Theatre of the Absurd. His minimalist plays, written in spare and elliptical language, deal with absurdity, inertia and futility, conveyed through enigmatic descriptions, metaphysical situations and unclear contexts of space and time. Beckett believed that life does have meaning but that it is impossible to find, and so the world is inevitably full of unresolved questions, dead ends, and despair. His pessimism with regard to the human race was reinforced by the fact that he lived through two world wars. However, despite the puzzles and paradoxes that Beckett describes, he also uses humour in a very personal and particular way. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969, but gave the money away to young artists. He died in 1989, a few months after his wife.

 

A short list of his plays:
Waiting for Godot, Happy days, Endgame, Krapp's last tape, Breath.

 

Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful.(Waiting for Godot)

 

Just to know that in theory you hear me, even though in fact you don’t, is all I need.(Happy days)