Samuel Beckett - Centenary Shadows

Samuel Beckett, one of the foremost playwrights of the twentieth century was rarely photographed, despite the fact that he was extremely interested in the process of photography. In 1969, when it was announced that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he refused to attend the ceremony, and retreated to Morocco. When he returned to Paris, where he spent most of his adult life, he tended to frequent restaurants and cafes where he would not be recognized. It was in one of these cafes that John Minihan took what became the most famous image of him. John Minihan, an Irish photographer, who lived and worked in London for over thirty years, first met Beckett in London in 1980. It was here that Samuel Beckett saw John's photographs of an Irish wake and, as a result, agreed to be photographed by him. Over the next four years, John continued to photograph him in London and Paris. This book, which contains previously unpublished photographs of Samuel Beckett, is a remarkable and timely tribute to the writer one hundred years after his birth.