This week marks the deaths and births of some of the most important poets, playwrights, and philosophers of the twentieth century: Primo Levi (d. April 11, 1987), Samuel Beckett (b. April 13, 1906), Seamus Heaney (b. April 13, 1939), and Jean-Paul Sartre (April 15, 1980).
Their works chronicle events such as the Holocaust and Bloody Sunday; tackle dread about life’s absurdity; and sit at the apex in which modernism became post-. Our archive is full of essays about these important figures, but we are also lucky to feature some pieces written by them for Boston Review. We hope you enjoy!
- June 1, 1999
A lost story shows the young writer struggling in Joyce's shadow
- July 8, 2014
Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential Marxism offers a radical philosophical foundation for today’s revitalized critiques of capitalism.
- November 14, 2018
Remembering Beckett twenty years after his death.
- November 19, 2009