Samuel Beckett

Beckett assisted Joyce (a strong influence) on ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ but distanced himself following Joyce’s daughter’s infatuation; Joyce also introduced him to Pound. He met Duchamp and Giacometti at the same time, and encountered Stravinsky on a voyage to Amsterdam. His publisher Calder played chess and billiards with him in Paris bars. Bion was Beckett’s psychoanalyst, de Beauvoir at one point his landlady. He bought a painting on credit from his friend Yeats, hid at Sarraute’s during a resistance roundup, and bailed Behan out of prison. He corresponded admiringly with O’Casey, despite never meeting, but his letter to Eisenstein never arrived