The Theatre of the Absurd
By (Author) Martin Esslin
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Bloomsbury Academic
23rd October 2014
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
Theatre studies
809.204
Paperback
432
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
533g
The Theatre of the Absurd has become a familiar term to describe a group of radical European playwrights writers such as Samuel Beckett, Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter whose dark, funny and humane dramas wrestled profoundly with the meaningless absurdity of the human condition. It is a testament to the power and insight of Martin Esslins landmark work, originally published in 1961, that its title should enter the English language in the way that it has. Now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series with a new preface by Marvin Carlson, The Theatre of the Absurd remains to this day a clear-eyed work of criticism on a compelling period of European writing.
Martin Esslin OBE (1918-2002) was a prolific dramatist, producer and translator, as well as being one of the most perceptive theatre critics of the 20th century.