Without any experience in theatrical production, Beckett ventured into composing drama as a respite from his flurry of fiction writing. From 1952 to 1956, En Attendant Godot and its English translation, Waiting for Godot, catapulted Beckett to international prominence. In 1969 Beckett received the Nobel Prize for literature, and before his death in 1989, he composed close to 30 works of fiction and more than 30 plays, poems, translations, and critical commentaries. Waiting for Godot portrays the major issues that preoccupied Beckett in his lifetime: the instability of one’s own existence, the failure to communicate with others, and both the loneliness and camaraderie of the human condition. The play grows out of, and casts these concerns in, Beckett’s experience of Europe in the years surrounding World War II.
The French underground. France capitulated to World War II’s Nazi aggressors in June 1940. Just days before the conquest, Samuel Beckett fled south for a few months, then returned to Paris. After the arrest of Paul Léon, a Jewish friend, who was ultimately tortured to death, Beckett joined the Resistance.
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