Beckett Remembering: Remembering Beckett: Uncollected Interviews with Samuel Beckett and Memories of Those Who Knew Him

Part I: Beckett Remembering Samuel Beckett is a key figure in twentieth-century literature and theatre. The first part of Beckett Remembering 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 Eileen and Shivaun O'Casey, Rick Cluchey, Jessica Tandy and Steve Martin).

About the Author :
James Knowlson is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Reading where he founded the Beckett Archive (now the Beckett International Foundation). He was a friend of Samuel Beckett for twenty years and is his authorised biographer, publishing Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett with Bloomsbury in 1996. He has written or edited many other books and essays on Beckett and modern drama, including most recently Images of Beckett with theatre photographer John Haynes. Dr Elizabeth Knowlson lectured in French at the University of Glasgow from 1961 to 1969. After having three children, she resumed her university career as an administrator at the Centre for Applied Language Studies in the University of Reading, before leaving her post to assist her husband with his biography of Beckett and his later books and essays.

Review :
Praise for DAMNED TO FAME: 'A landmark in scholarly criticism...Knowlson is the world's leading Beckett scholar. His life is right up there with George Painter's Proust and Richard Ellman's Joyce in sensitivity and fascination' Daily Telegraph 'A triumph of scholarship and sympathy' Independent 'The depth of detail is formidable, and instantly puts other Beckett biographies in the shade' Sunday Times 'Unlikely ever to be superseded... Completely absorbing' Spectator