Beckett and Germany

This special issue of the Journal of Beckett Studies is devoted to Beckett’s intensive relationship with German culture. It consists of two parts: on the one hand it assesses Beckett’s attitude towards German literature, art and philosophy; on the other hand it highlights a few important instances in the reception of Beckett’s work in Germany. As a reader of German literature and as an aspiring art critic, Beckett went to Germany at an extremely tumultuous and dangerous period in the country’s political and cultural history. The volume contains a complete chronology of this journey in 1936-37. It also investigates Beckett’s attitude towards German Romanticism, from both a literary and a philosophical perspective. In the reception of Beckett’s works, Theodor W. Adorno’s ‘Versuch, das Endspiel zu verstehen’ plays a central role. The volume presents a translation of Adorno’s notes on Fin de partie and L'Innommable, with accompanying analyses, focusing on Beckett’s direction of Endspiel and his relationship with the Suddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR). Finally, the volume closes with review essays on a selection from the vast amount of recent German publications on Beckett. In this way, the thematic issue promotes the cross-fertilisation between research communities working on Beckett in different languages.