About
Samuel Barclay Beckett ( ; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish playwright, poet, novelist, and literary critic. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical works feature bleak, impersonal, and tragicomic episodes of life, coupled with black comedy and literary nonsense. Beckett is regarded by critics as one of the most influential and important playwrights of the 20th century, and is credited with transforming the modern theatre. A major figure of Irish literature, he is best known for his tragicomedy play Waiting for Godot (1953). For his enduring contribution to both literature and theatre, Beckett received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."