Since Enoch Brater's essential study of Samuel Beckett's life and works was originally published before Beckett died, the author has taken the opportunity of this paperback reprint to bring his subject up to date. Beckett was undoubtedly a difficult writer, and one of the virtues of this biography is to give the general reader easier access to all aspects of his work, particularly the more elliptic theater and prose pieces of his later years. Brater follows Beckett's career from the early days in Ireland to the efflorescence in his chosen expatriate home in France just after the Second World War, and beyond that to his success in the rest of the world as a result of the universal appeal of his cryptic, moving play <I>Waiting for Godot.</I> Brater emphasizes the Irish rhythms in Beckett's writing and examines, at all stages, the intriguing relationship between his fiction and his compositions for theater, film, and television. Supported by a generous selection of photographs, including many examples of Beckett productions in all parts of the world, this is the indispensable guide to understanding one of the literary geniuses of the twentieth century. 122 b/w illustrations. The first edition was published under the title <I>Why Beckett?</I>.