In Memoriam: Harold Pinter

When, in 2005, Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize, it came after a career in the theatre spanning five decades; a career, it hardly needs to be said, which then showed no signs of slowing down.

Yet, if it was up to him, he would have spent his career between the wickets - as a cricketer - instead of writing the important works of political and social realism he did. In fact, Pinter's works are so important, he became an adjective: Pinter-esque. In a Pinter play, as much can be said with a pause as with words.

In the same way, Pinter's work as a screenwriter, poet, essayist and director says as much as his work as a playwright does. The French government agreed when, in 2007, it awarded Pinter the Légion d'honneur for 'seeking to capture all the facets of the human spirit'.

Born on this day in 1930, Harold Pinter died in December 2008, and is survived by his second wife, the historian Antonia Fraser and Daniel Pinter, a son by his first wife, Vivien Merchant.
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