He's born hundred years ago, in 1906, in Dublin I believe. As one of the greatest writers of the 20th century he's the opposite twin to Irish writer James Joyce: minimalist versus universalist, concentration to zero against taking the world inside one book (Joyce's Ulysses or his Finnegan's wake)
As an adolescent I saw Beckett's "Final play" in the theater of Darmstadt. This changed my view of the world. Later we played Beckett ourselves at school in Marburg: "Krapp's last tape".
He settled in Paris, were he died in
From October to December 1936, one year before he would definitely settle down in Paris, Beckett, as a young, widely unknown traveler was exploring Hamburg, as during all his life in long walks and strolls through the city, fixing his impressions (of upcoming Nazi-era) in a diary. Beckett’s „feral eye“ observed precisely the dense mesh of urban culture to catch those striking features he would use as theme or structures in his work. A symposion will be hold in Hamburg on this occasion (Nov.2006)