Waiting for Godot Format: Paperback

From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Théâtre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become one of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, “Time catches up with genius. . . . Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century.”

Beckett wrote the play in French and then translated it into English himself. In doing so he chose to revise and eliminate various passages. With side-by-side text, the reader can experience the mastery of Beckett’s language and explore its nuances. Upon being asked who Godot is, Samuel Beckett told director Alan Schneider, “If I knew, I would have said so in the play.” Although we may never know who we are waiting for, in this special edition we can rediscover one of the most poignant and humorous allegories of our time.

SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989), one of the leading literary and dramatic figures of the twentieth century, was born in Foxrock, Ireland, and attended Trinity University in Dublin. In 1928, he visited Paris for the first time and fell in with a number of avant-garde writers and artists, including James Joyce. In 1937, he settled in Paris permanently. Beckett wrote in both English and French, though his best-known works are mostly in the latter language. A prolific writer of novels, short stories, and poetry, he is remembered principally for his works for the theater, which belong to the tradition of the Theater of the Absurd and are characterized by their minimalist approach, stripping drama to its barest elements. In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and commended for having 'transformed the destitution of man into his exaltation.' Beckett died in Paris in 1989.