Which Austrian avant-garde playwright and novelist wrote 'Waiting for Godot' (1953), a cornerstone of the Theatre of the Absurd where two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly beside a tree?

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: C. Samuel Beckett

  1. Step 1: Awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, this Dublin-born author lived most of his life in Paris and wrote primarily in French before translating his works into English.
  2. Step 2: Samuel Beckett's two-act tragicomedy 'Waiting for Godot' (En attendant Godot) pares dramatic staging down to bare essentials as its characters await the arrival of a figure who never appears.
Answer
Samuel Beckett
Why not the others: 'Eugène Ionesco' Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian-French Absurdist playwright best known for 'The Bald Soprano' and 'Rhinoceros'; 'Harold Pinter' Harold Pinter was a British Nobel laureate playwright renowned for 'comedy of menace' and trademark pregnant pauses in 'The Birthday Party'; 'Jean Genet' Jean Genet was a French avant-garde dramatist and novelist who wrote 'The Balcony' and 'The Maids'.

Practise more World Literature and Renowned Authors.

Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed General Knowledge mock tests.

All World Literature and Renowned Authors questionsTake a mock test

More World Literature and Renowned Authors questions