Irish · b. 1906
Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 for "a body of work that, in new forms for the novel and drama, has transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation." The Irish-French author wrote "Waiting for Godot," which changed theater; his trilogy—"Molloy," "Malone Dies," "The Unnamable"—stripped the novel to its bones. Beckett moved to Paris and wrote in French to escape the habits of English. His work grows more minimal; his late prose approaches silence.