FAMOUS WRITERS OF IRELAND ? He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize (Literature, 1925) and an Academy Award (Best Adapted Screenplay, 1938), the first for his contributions to literature and the second for his film adaptation of his most popular play, Pygmalion . ? e Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright, critic and socialist whose influence on Western theatre, culture and politics stretched from the 1880s to his death in 1950. ? He wrote more than 60 plays. ? With his range from biting contemporary satire to historical allegory, Shaw became the leading comedy dramatist of his generation and one of the most important playwrights in the English language since the 17th century. ? In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honoured for what the mittee described as “ inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation. ” Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers pleted their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize. ? William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was born in Sandy mount, Ireland and educated there and in London; he spent his childhood holidays in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. From 1900, Yeats's poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained upied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd." Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which — in new forms for the novel and drama — in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation." ? Samuel Barclay Beckett ( 13 April 1906 – 22 D
