World and Trousers - Beckett Selections (1)

Author: Samuel Beckett (France)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: On April 13 this year, it was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the world-famous writer Samuel Beckett. Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House launched "Beckett's Selected Works." The entire set consists of 5 volumes and 1.25 million words, collecting all of Beckett's works written in French after he settled in Paris, France, in chronological order. It was translated primarily by Yu Zhongxian, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the editor-in-chief of "World Literature." Samuel Beckett won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his novel and dramatic works, which with their new form bring about a new awareness of life to the modern man." However, in China, many people's understanding of him is limited to his famous work "Waiting for Godot." It is reported that Beckett's formal literary career began with novel writing and poetry, and his number of novels far exceeds his dramatic works. From the perspective of literary expression, Beckett excelled in portraying the elusive and delicate inner world. As a form with stronger individuality, the novel was more suitable for Beckett. His trilogy of novels in French, "Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable," broke tradition by, focusing only on monologues of the inner voice. This writing style directly led to the literary experiments of the French New Novel movement. Many critics believe that this trilogy is more powerful and significant than "Waiting for Godot," and few modern literary works offer such a profound understanding of human experience. During Beckett's lifetime, it was widely said internationally that Borges, Nabokov, and Beckett were the three greatest living writers. However, in China, Beckett's novels were largely ignored, which can be considered a great loss for Chinese translation circles. The 5-volume "Beckett's Selected Works" launched by Hunan Literature and Art this time includes the trilogy "Molloy," thus largely filling this gap.