Samuel Beckett

Nobel Prize-winning novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett has widely influenced the course of twentieth-century literature. The impact of his plays (Waiting for Godot, Endgame), novels (Molloy), and numerous short stories, fiction pieces, and poems have added the word Beckettian to the literary lexicon next toKafkaesque. Beckett's work depicts the unrelenting plight of contemporary existence: living at the edge of an abyss, in an indifferent universe, trying simply to "go on" with daily life in the face of a recognition of futility. His ability to shape this modern experience into art has led the way for Sam Shepard, Harold Pinter, Edward AI bee, and many other playwrights and novelists.

Linda Ben-Zvi's definitive study is based on rigorous scholarship, interviews and correspondence with Beckett himself, and unpublished material used with Beckett's special permission. This is the only discussion available of all Beckett's writings, and one of the few summaries of Beckett as a critic. Ben-Zvi offers fresh insights into both the familiar and the less well-known fictions and dramas. She makes Beckett accessible to every reader and demonstrates how sensitivity to the modern world prepares even a reader new to Beckett to appreciate his writing.
 

As Samuel Beckett enters his eighth decade, this timely book bridges the gap between the Beckett scholar and the first-time reader. Its introduction offers a clear, direct discussion of how one approaches a writer like Beckett. Subsequent chapters place the subject in dramatic context, relate his ideas to those of major philosophers, and discuss at length his experimentation with language and style. There is a complete summary of all Beckett's works in both French and English. A useful handbook for someone checking a specific work, Samuel Beckett is also a general guide to Beckett's development as a writer of fiction and drama.
 

Linda Ben-Zvi, professor of English at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, has published widely in the field of modern drama.