Literature Network » James Joyce

Welcome to Beckett country Last Thursday was the centenary of the birth of Samuel Beckett - after James Joyce, Ireland's most-celebrated 20th-century writer. Hermione Eyre reports from Dublin on how this lifelong exile and reclusive poet of existentia

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From: The Independent on Sunday
Date: 20060416
Author:Hermione Eyre reports

The madness begins before you get through duty-free. Posters for the Beckett festival are ranged along the travelator at Dublin airport, where adverts for Rolex and whiskey normally hang. "Surfing for Godot - www.beckettcentenaryfestival.ie" reads one. Another quotes, in large letters, "Didi: Shall we go? Gogo: Yes. Let's go" and then, in smaller text, gives the hard-sell: "You should go", rather in the manner of a poster advertising a former Soviet beach resort. A third simply states: "A hundred years on. Still waiting."

These give anyone arriving in Dublin the conviction that they are in ...

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