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Harold Pinter

Born

in Hackney, London, The United Kingdom

October 10, 1930

Died

December 24, 2008

Website

http://www.haroldpinter.org

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Theatre, Poetry

Influences

Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, William Shakes ...more

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Plays, including The Birthday Party (1958) and The Dumb Waiter (1960), of British playwright, screenwriter, and director Harold Pinter create an atmosphere of menace; people awarded him the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005.

This English actor, political activist, and poet ranks of the most influential of modern times.

After publishing poetry and acting in school plays as a teenager in London, Pinter, touring throughout Ireland, began his professional theatrical career in 1951. From 1952, he acted in repertory companies throughout England for a dozen years; he used the stage name David Baron in the late 1950s. Beginning with The Room (1957), first play, of Pinter, his writing career spanned over a half-century and produced 29 o Plays, including The Birthday Party (1958) and The Dumb Waiter (1960), of British playwright, screenwriter, and director Harold Pinter create an atmosphere of menace; people awarded him the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005.

This English actor, political activist, and poet ranks of the most influential of modern times.

After publishing poetry and acting in school plays as a teenager in London, Pinter, touring throughout Ireland, began his professional theatrical career in 1951. From 1952, he acted in repertory companies throughout England for a dozen years; he used the stage name David Baron in the late 1950s. Beginning with The Room (1957), first play, of Pinter, his writing career spanned over a half-century and produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio plays, television plays, poetry, one novel, short fiction, essays, speeches, and letters. His best-known plays include The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He directed almost 50 stage, television, and film productions and acted extensively in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. Despite frail health after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in December 2001, Pinter continued to act on stage and screen, last performing the title role in a critically-acclaimed stage production of Samuel Beckett's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape, for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre, in October 2006.

Pinter's dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters who struggle for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own versions of the past. Stylistically, these works are marked by theatrical pauses and silences, comedic timing, irony and menace. Thematically ambiguous, they raise complex issues of individual identity oppressed by social forces, language, and vicissitudes of memory. In 1981, Pinter stated that he was not inclined to write plays explicitly about political subjects; yet in the mid-1980s he began writing overtly political plays, reflecting his own heightening political interests and changes in his personal life. This "new direction" in his work and his left-wing political activism stimulated additional critical debate about Pinter's politics. Pinter, his work, and his politics have been the subject of voluminous critical commentary.

Pinter received numerous awards. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he received the Tony Award for Best Play in 1967 for The Homecoming. He was given BAFTA awards, the French Légion d'honneur and 20 honorary degrees. Festivals and symposia have been devoted to him and his work. In awarding the Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy noted, "That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: 'Pinteresque'". He died from liver cancer on 24 December 2008. He was buried the following week at Kensal Green Cemetery in North West London.
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Combine Editions
Harold Pinter’s books

Average rating: 3.75 · 49,762 ratings · 2,552 reviews · 321 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Birthday Party 3.71 avg rating — 11,933 ratings — published 1957 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Homecoming 3.71 avg rating — 9,619 ratings — published 1964 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Betrayal 3.95 avg rating — 7,779 ratings — published 1978 — 51 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Caretaker 3.68 avg rating — 3,767 ratings — published 1960 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Dumb Waiter 3.73 avg rating — 3,256 ratings — published 1957 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Complete Works: Volume 1 4.12 avg rating — 1,128 ratings — published 1976 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Birthday Party & The Room 3.85 avg rating — 1,092 ratings — published 1961 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Old Times 3.75 avg rating — 1,058 ratings — published 1971 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Man's Land 3.73 avg rating — 844 ratings — published 1975 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Caretaker & The Dumb Waiter 3.86 avg rating — 596 ratings — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Harold Pinter…

Series by Harold Pinter

Complete Works (4 books)
by

Harold Pinter

4.15 avg rating — 1,884 ratings

Quotes by Harold Pinter (?)

“One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.”
― Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics

tags: life

515 likes

“There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.”
― Harold Pinter, Old Times

tags: false, falsehood, memory, recollection, truth

421 likes

“I hate brandy...it stinks of modern literature.”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

396 likes

See all Harold Pinter's quotes »

Polls

Who is the worst one of these incredibly bad authors?

Elfriede Jelinek

3 votes, 33.3%

Herta Müller

3 votes, 33.3%

Dario Fo

2 votes, 22.2%

Gao Xingjian

1 vote, 11.1%

Harold Pinter

0 votes, 0.0%

9 total votes

7 comments

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Harold Pinter’s Followers (705)

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Harold Pinter

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Combine Editions
Harold Pinter’s books