Waiting for Godot

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Faber & Faber, 2010 - Drama - 91 pages
Subtitled ‘A tragicomedy in two acts’, and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which ‘nothinghappens, twice’, En attendant Godot was first performed at the Th_ātre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, and opened as Waiting for Godot at the Arts Theatre in London in 1955.‘I told [Ralph] Richardson that if by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot.This seemed to disappoint him greatly.’-- Samuel Beckett to Barney Rosset, 18 October 1954All the dead voices.They make a noise like wings.Like leaves.Like sand.Like leaves.[Silence.]They all speak together. Each one to itself.[Silence.]Rather they whisper.They rustle.They murmur. They rustle.[Silence.] What do they say?They talk about their lives.To have lived is not enough for them.They have to talk about it.To be dead is not enough for them.It is not sufficient.[Silence.]They make a noise like feathers.Like leaves.Like ashes.Like leaves.

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About the author (2010)

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906 and graduated from Trinity College. He settled in Paris in 1937, after travels in Germany and periods of residence in London and Dublin. He remained in France during the Second World War and was active in the French Resistance. From the spring of 1946 his plays, novels, short fiction, poetry and criticism were largely written in French. With the production of En attendant Godot in Paris in 1953, Beckett's work began to achieve widespread recognition. During his subsequent career as a playwright and novelist in both French and English he redefined the possibilities of prose fiction and writing for the theatre. Samuel Beckett won the Prix Formentor in 1961 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. He died in Paris in December 1989.