BECKETT: THE ESSENTIALS

April 13th, 1906
Born on Good Friday, in Foxrock, Co Dublin

1920-23
Educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen

1923-27
Attends Trinity College Dublin
1928
Beckett's friend, poet Thomas MacGreevy, introduces him to James Joyce in Paris. Beckett works as a lecturer in English at the École Normale Supérieure

1929
His first published work, DanteBruno.Vico..Joyce, appears in Our Exagmination and a short story, Assumption, in the journal transition

1930
Whoroscope, a poem, is published in Paris. Helps to translate Joyce's Anna Livia Plurabelle into French. Becomes lecturer in French in Trinity College Dublin but resigns after four terms

1931
Proust is published in London

1933
While living in London his father dies, leaving him a small annuity

1934
His collection of stories, More Pricks Than Kicks, is published

1937
Settles in Paris

1938
Novel Murphy is published. He is stabbed by a pimp in Paris

1941-42
Works with French Resistance

1942
Escapes from Paris with Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil

1945
Works for the Irish Red Cross and is attached to the Irish hospital in Saint-Lô in Normandy. He is awarded the Croix de Guerre.
Begins to write exclusively in French

June, 1946
His poem, Saint-Lô, appears in The Irish Times

1947-48
Writes the novel Mercier et Camier

1948-49
Writes Waiting for Godot

1951-53
The Trilogy - Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable - first appears in French

January 5th, 1953
First production of En Attendant Godot is staged in the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris.
Also in 1953, Watt is published in English

October, 1955
Irish premiere of Waiting for Godot in the Pike Theatre, following the Peter Hall production in London in August. The production continues into the new year, transfers to the Gate Theatre in March and thereafter tours to Dundalk, Navan, Drogheda, Cork, Waterford, Clonmel and Carlow and finishs in the Gas Company Theatre in DúLaoghaire in June, 1956

1958
Writes Krapp's Last Tape. Malone Dies is published in London

1959
Receives honorary degree from Trinity College Dublin

1961
Marries Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil in Folkestone, England.
Happy Days is published and performed in New York

1964
Beckett's only screenplay, Film, is made, starring Buster Keaton and directed by Alan Schneider

1965
Writes his first television play, Eh Joe, which is transmitted by the BBC the following year

October,1969
Beckett is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Suzanne's reaction is 'Quelle catastrophe'. Beckett gives much of the $70,000 award to charity

1970s-1980s
Writing less and less

July, 1989
Suzanne dies December 22nd, 1989 Beckett dies in Paris. He is buried at the Cimetiere de Montparnasse