Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter CH CBE was born in London in 1930. In 1995 he won the David Cohen Literature Prize, awarded for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. In 1996 he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre. In 1997 he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship. In 1998 he was made Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. In 2002 he was made a Companion of Honour for Services to Literature. In 2005 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry, and the Franz Kafka Award (Prague). In 2007 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur. His most well known plays include, The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978). His screenplay adaptations include, The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007).
Pinter also acted in, and directed, radio, stage, television and film productions. He toured all over Ireland in the 1950s with ‘the fit-ups’, acting in Agnew McMaster’s famous Shakespeare Repertory Company. He was married to author Lady Antonia Fraser from 1980 until his death in 2008.