The second of the three greatest novels by the era-defining Nobel laureate, reissued for a new generation, introduced by Claire-Louise Bennett.
Nothing is more real than nothing.
Malone, a decrepit old man, lies naked in his bed, scrawling bitter observations in an exercise book. He is fed on a bed-table, his chamber pot is emptied, he hooks items with his stick, he looks out of the window. He tells the story of a man, looked after by nurses, taken for an ill-fated picnic on an island in the sea. As his mind disintegrates, so does the novel . . .
Malone Dies is the second of the three great novels Samuel Beckett produced during his 'frenzy of writing' in the late 1940s. The others are Molloy and The Unnamable.
An inner landscape, a passionate and obsessive investigation of being. ― New York Times
Reading Beckett's prose is like seeing the sea for the first time; the experience is lulling and terrifying in equal measure. -- Anne Enright
[Beckett] leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely . . . His work is beautiful. -- Harold Pinter
His novels . . . had to be written and, though we suffer reading them, we are glad that they have been written. -- Anthony Burgess
One of the only writers to convey both the gravity and ludicrousness of being alive. -- Lucy Prebble
His work can seem spare and bleak, but it's also profoundly humane, funny, and, I think, suffused with love. . . . Time spent with Beckett is never wasted time. -- Jo Baker
About the Author
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906 and graduated from Trinity College. He settled in Paris in 1937, after travels in Germany and periods of residence in London and Dublin. He remained in France during the Second World War and was active in the French Resistance. From the spring of 1946 his plays, novels, short fiction, poetry and criticism were largely written in French. With the production of En attendant Godot in Paris in 1953, Beckett's work began to achieve widespread recognition. During his subsequent career as a playwright and novelist in both French and English he redefined the possibilities of prose fiction and writing for the theatre. Samuel Beckett won the Prix Formentor in 1961 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. He died in Paris in December 1989.
