The first of the three greatest novels by the era-defining Nobel laureate, reissued for a new generation, with a new foreword by Colm Tóibín.
I am still alive then. That may come in useful.
Molloy, a sordid, bedridden vagrant, recalls a long bicycle ride in search of his mother. He describes sucking on stones, falling in love, getting arrested, killing a dog. Moran, a private detective, sets out to look for Molloy. But as Moran's physical and mental state deteriorate, his narrative starts to mirror Molloy's in mysterious ways.
Molloy is the first of the three great novels Samuel Beckett produced during his 'frenzy of writing' in the late 1940s. The others are Malone Dies and The Unnamable.
My favourite. -- Vladimir Nabokov
Beckett turns and then slaps the other cheek. -- Tom Waits
Molloy entirely changed my sense of what could be done with literature. -- Tim Parks
More powerful and important than Godot. ― New York Times
Beckett's words are artefacts. I carry them in my pocket for consolation. -- Simon McBurney
The master innovator of them all. ― Guardian
Gives the emotional excitement of encountering great art - as great as Shakespeare's or Beethoven's; which contains humour as well as beauty and splendour ... ― Guardian
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.
