Endgame and Act Without Words

Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969; his literary output of plays, novels, stories and poetry has earned him an uncontested place as one of the greatest writers of our time. Endgame, originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett’s characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death.

About Author	Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in France for most of his adult life. He wrote in both English and French. His work offers a
Author	Samuel Beckett
Format	Ebook
ISBN	9780802198815
Language	English
Pages	35
Publication Date	06-15-2009
Publisher	Grove Press

1 review for Endgame and Act Without Words

Rated 5 out of 5

scull17 (verified owner) – 04/30/2025

Beckett manages in this short play to say a lot more about life, death, memory, dreams, sickness, boredom, anxiety, family, than your average five-hundred-page novel. We meet four characters: Hamm, the blind cripple who is master of the house; Clov, the long-suffering servant (who may or may not be Hamm’s son); and Hamm’s old, decrepit parents, Nagg and Nell. In this claustrophobic setting where they languish, they are doomed not only to repeat the same actions over and over again, but to say the same things and tell the same stories over and over again; caught (as they are) in the insanity of routine, they ask: “Why this farce, day after day?”

Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.