Anthem Press has just announced the publication of Beckett and Broadcasting: On Works of Samuel Beckett for and in Radio and Television by Clas Zilliacus. This well-known, foundational work in the field was completed in 1976 but received only limited circulation at the time. Now presented with a new introduction by the author and an afterword by Galina Kiryushina this edition is guaranteed to be of interest to experienced and new scholars alike as more research is undertaken in this burgeoning area of Beckett study.
As the publicity reminds us, the study ‘appeared at a stage when Beckett’s main interest in writing for the media had focused on radio. It combines close and extensive textual analysis with contextual sensitivity to the special qualities of the broadcast media. Zilliacus shows a thorough familiarity with the conditions of radio production. A close analysis both of manuscript stages of the media works and of productions and their reception made this a pioneering achievement in the field of Beckett and broadcast media, which was a somewhat slighted part of the œuvre at the time. The groundwork of the study still holds’.
The Samuel Beckett Society 