FRANCE: It wasn't Samuel Beckett's style to frequent literary cafés. The great Irish writer so dreaded publicity that when his publisher, Jérôme Lindon, called Beckett with news one day in 1969, Lindon said: "A catastrophe has happened. You've won the Nobel Prize."
All of which made the launching of "Paris Beckett 2006/2007" at Le Café de Flore (the haunt of Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus) almost inappropriate. In smaller groups, Beckett would have felt at home with the actors, theatre directors and others who met to plan the centenary of his birth on April 13th, 1906.
"Celebrating the centenary is a labour of love for me," said Tom Bishop, a professor at New York University and a leading authority on 20th century French literature. Prof Bishop organised two Beckett commemorations, in 1981 and 1986, for his 75th and 80th birthdays.
"He didn't participate, but he approved," Prof Bishop said. "In 1986, he agreed to meet the participants for coffee."
Beckett's executor, his nephew Edward Beckett, a concert flautist, attended the Flore brunch. "I reserved the rights for the committee for a certain period, to avoid confusion," he said.
For the first time, Beckett's entire theatrical oeuvre of 19 plays will be performed in France. Aspects of the festival will be devoted to his interest in music. "He was quite a decent pianist," his nephew said.
There will also be big celebrations at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, at the Barbican in London, in New York and Tokyo. He remains "famous but ill-known", said the Beckettian actor Pierre Chabert.
"Most people know only three of his plays. He wrote poetry, essays, novellas. He wrote for TV, radio and the cinema. His work is an enormous ensemble, a continent . . ."
The French feel possessive about Beckett because he lived in France from 1937 until his death in 1989, and wrote much in French.
"The back and forth between the two languages, translating himself, was very important, because often translation kills the work," Chabert said.
Celebrations will start later this month with Oh les Beaux Jours at the Comédie Francaise, and continue until spring 2007 with a major exhibition at the Georges Pompidou Centre.
The Centre Culturel Irlandais will host open-air performances of his plays next summer, and a Franco-Irish production inspired by Beckett in autumn 2006. There will be contemporary art and musical works inspired by Beckett, and a series of academic lectures and cinema adaptations.