Over the last decade, Samuel Beckett's popularity has rocketed around the world and he is increasingly recognised as one of the most important and influential writers of the twentieth century but there has been very little scholarly work on Beckett's reception outside Europe. This comprehensive volume brings together essays from leading critics on Beckett's international critical reception. Due to Beckett's linguistic and artistic abilities, he was intimately involved in the translation and production of his writings in German, French, English and Spanish; and consequently countries using these languages have sophisticated critical traditions. However, many other countries have adopted Beckett as their own, from places where he lived for lengthy periods of his life (England, France, Ireland and Germany), to those finding directly applicable political messages in his work (such as ex-Soviet states including the Czech Republic and Romania), and those countries whose national literary traditions bear heavily upon his work (e.g. Norway and Italy). This fascinating volume reveals Beckett's evolving critical reception from contemporary reviews to the present.

Table Of Contents

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: ‘Getting known’: Samuel Beckett’s International Reception

1. The Business of Being Beckett: Beckett’s Reception in the USA, S.E. Gontarski (Florida State University, USA)

2. Beckett Among the Philosophes: The Critical Reception of Samuel Beckett in France, Shane Weller (University of Kent, UK)

3. Beckett’s Reception in Great Britain, Mary Bryden (University of Northampton, UK)

4. Samuel Beckett’s Reception in Ireland, Seán Kennedy (St. Mary’s University, Canada)

5. The Reception of Beckett’s Theatre and Television Pieces in West and East Germany, Gaby Hartel, Klaus Völker and Thomas Irmer (Frie University Berlin, Germany)

6. Shades of Negativity and Self-Reflexivity: The Reception of Beckett in German Literary Studies, Eckart Voigts-Virchow (University of Siegen, Germany)

7. Samuel Beckett’s Reception in Australia and New Zealand, Russell Smith and Chris Ackerley (Australian National University, Australia and University of Otago, New Zealand)

8. The Reception of Samuel Beckett in China, Lie Jianxi and Mike Ingham (Macao Polytechnic Institute and Lingnan University, Hong Kong)

9. The Japanese Reception of Samuel Beckett, Yoshiki Tajiri and Mariko Hori Tanaka (University of Tokyo, Japan and Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan)

10. Samuel Beckett and Poland, Marek Kedzierski (Freiburg, Germany)

11. Samuel Beckett in the Low Countries, Dirk Van Hulle (University of Antwerp, Belgium)

12. Thinking of ‘a rhyme for “Euganean”: Beckett in Italy, Daniela Caselli (University of Manchester, UK)

13. Beckett’s Nordic Reception, Ulrika Maude (University of Durham, UK)

14. Samuel Beckett behind the Iron Curtain: The Reception in Eastern Europe, Octavian Saiu (University of Otago, New Zealand)

15. A Long Time Coming: The Critical Response to Samuel Beckett in Spain and Portugal, José Francisco Fernández (University of Almería, Spain)

Index

Mark Nixon is Lecturer in English at the University of Reading, UK, where he is also the Co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation.

Matthew Feldman is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Northampton, UK.