Theatre of the Absurd

<p>The 'Theatre of the Absurd' has become a familiar term to describe a group of radical European playwrights - writers such as Samuel Beckett Eugène Ionesco Jean Genet and Harold Pinter - whose dark funny and humane dramas wrestled profoundly with the meaningless absurdity of the human condition. It is a testament to the power and insight of Martin Esslin's landmark work originally published in 1961 that its title should enter the English language in the way that it has. <p/>Now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series with a new preface by Marvin Carlson <i>The Theatre of the Absurd</i> remains to this day a clear-eyed work of criticism on a compelling period of European writing.</p>