Beckett Remembering: Remembering Beckett

Uncollected Interviews with Beckett & Memories of Those Who Knew Him.

A revealing tribute to a great novelist, poet and dramatist in his centenary year.

Part I: Beckett Remembering - Samuel Beckett is a key figure in twentieth-century literature and theatre. The first part of this book consists of original interviews between Samuel Beckett and James Knowlson, his authorised biographer, where Beckett speaks at length about his life. He talks of his family, his early youth, his friendship with James Joyce and his work as a Resistance agent in Paris during the war, forced to flee from the Gestapo and to live out the remaining war years in the Vaucluse region of Southern France.

Part II: Remembering Beckett - Some of Beckett's closest friends remember him as a schoolboy, as a struggling young writer, then as an international success in the 1950s with his novels and plays, including the world-famous Waiting for Godot. Actors directed by him (including Billie Whitelaw, Brenda Bruce and Jean Martin) recount vividly their first-hand experiences and several writers from various countries (including Edward Albee, Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee and Aidan Higgins) speak of Beckett's work and the impact that it had on their own writing. Other esteemed actors and directors provide personal memories and tributes (including Hume Cronyn, Walter Asmus, Shivaun O'Casey and Jessica Tandy).