Table of Contents

Restrictions on access

Copyright restrictions, see Reading Room Librarian.

Source

Purchase, 2001.

Citation

[after identification of item(s)], Robert Pinget - Samuel Beckett letters, Archives and Manuscripts, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Biographical Note for Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett was born on Good Friday, April 13, 1906, in Foxrock, Ireland, near Dublin. He studied modern languages at Trinity College in Dublin and graduated in 1927. The following year, Beckett went to Paris, where he quickly became acquainted with a group of avant-garde artists, including James Joyce. There, he taught English at the Ecole Normale Superieure for two years before returning to Trinity College, where he earned his M.A. while teaching French. He left his post at Trinity in order to travel through Europe and to devote himself to writing. In 1937, he returned to Paris, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.

During World War II, Beckett joined an underground resistance group. He was forced to flee from Paris to unoccupied France in 1942 because of the threat of arrest by the German Gestapo. Hiding in the village of Roussillon in Southern France, Beckett worked as an agricultural laborer until the war ended in 1945, at which time he returned to Paris and began his most productive creative period.

As a poet, Beckett made his debut in 1930 with "Whoroscope", a ninety-eight-line poem in which Rene Descartes meditates on metaphysical issues while waiting for his morning omelet. This was followed by a collection of essays, Proust (1931), and one of short stories, More Pricks than Kicks (1934). His career as a novelist began in 1938 with the publication of Murphy. After the war, Beckett wrote the trilogy of novels Molloy (1951), Malone Meurt (1951, "Malone Dies"), and L'Innommable (1953, "The Unnamable"). He also wrote plays during this period, including Eleutheria and Waiting for Godot. Written in 1948, published in French in 1952 and in English the following year, Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960. Beckett died in Paris on December 22, 1989.

Sources: Knowlson, James, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996 and "Samuel Beckett," Contemporary Authors Online, The Gale Group, 2001.

Biographical Note for Robert Pinget

Robert Pinget was born on July 19, 1919 in Geneva, Switzerland. As a young man, he studied and practiced law. He soon became dissatisfied with his legal career, however, and moved to Paris and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study painting in 1946. Gradually he discovered his interest in writing and became ensconced in the Nouveau Roman (or "New Novel") literary movement led by authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras. He published his first book, the collection of short stories Entre Fantoine et Agapa in 1950. Although his unconventional style made publishers leery, Pinget's works were aided by endorsements from renowned French writers such as Robbe-Grillet and Albert Camus. He met Samuel Beckett in 1955 and they forged a friendship that would become important to Pinget both personally and professionally. Beckett translated Pinget's La Manivelle into English and Pinget, in turn, translated Beckett's All That Fall into French. L'Inquisitoire, published in 1962 and translated into English as The Inquisitory in 1966, is perhaps Pinget's best known work. Robert Pinget died of a stroke in 1997 in Tours, France.

Sources: Henkels, Jr., Robert M., Robert Pinget, U of Alabama P: 1979 and "Robert Pinget," Contemporary Authors Online, The Gale Group, 2000.

Scope and Content Note

The Samuel Beckett - Robert Pinget Letters comprise approximately 2 linear feet (3 boxes). The materials consist of correspondence from Beckett to the Swiss-born novelist Pinget and date between 1953 and 1988. The letters are divided into two series: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett - Originals and The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett - Photocopies and Transcriptions.

Arrangement Note

Arranged into two series: (1) Correspondence of Samuel Beckett-Originals and (2) Correspondence of Samuel Beckett-Photocopies and transcriptions.

---

Selected Search Terms

Personal Names

Beckett, Samuel, 1906--Correspondence.

Pinget, Robert--Correspondence.

Pinget, Robert.

Topical Terms

Authors, French--20th century--Correspondence.

Authors, Irish--20th century--Correspondence.

New novel (Literary movement)--France--History--Sources.