 Harold
Pinter, the greatest artiste who was awarded Nobel Prize for literature
in 2005, can be accepted as a man with unbelievable talents. He as well
as being the Nobel Laureate, is renowned as an influential playwright,
screenwriter, actor, director, poet, author and political activist.
Much more for the appreciation of Pinter he has been awarded the
Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature (Vienna),
the Pirandello Prize (Palenno), the David Cohen British Literature
Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, the Legion d’Honneur and the Moliere
D’Honneur for his lifetime achievement.
In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of
Literature. Moreover, he received honorary degrees from seventeen
universities.
He published poetry when he was a teenager and later began his
theatrical career in 1950s as a repertory (a theatre in which a resident
company presents dramas from a specified repertoire.) for which he had
used the stage name David Baron from 1954 until 1959.
As an exceptionally capable artiste, he began his career with his
first play, “The Room” in 1957. Pinter produced 29 stage plays; 26
screen plays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays; poetry; one
novel; short fiction; and essays, speeches and letters.
He is best known for his works such as The Birthday Party (1957), The
Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978) each of
which he adapted to film.
The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant’s
Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007) can be regarded as his
adaptations of other’s works. On the other hand he directed almost 50
stage, television and film productions.
Having diagnosed the oesophageal cancer late in 2001, ignoring his
health, he continued to act on stage and produce Samuel Beckett’s one
-act monologue Krapp’s Last Tape for the 50th anniversary season of the
Royal Court theatre, in October 2006.
Born on 10th, October 1930 to a respectable, lower middle class
Jewish family, Harold Pinter’s work is more or less influenced by his
family background. He was engrossed in Cricket.
His words at the receiving of his Nobel Prize, “There are no hard
distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what
is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or
false; it can be both true and false” clearly shows that the philosophy
beneath his all work.
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