Birth of Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in London. A British playwright, screenwriter, director and poet, Pinter wrote plays marked by pauses, silences and menace, such as The Birthday Party, The Caretaker and The Homecoming. The term Pinteresque was coined for the atmosphere of ambiguous threat in his work. He also wrote screenplays for films including The Servant, The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman. In later life he was an outspoken critic of American and British foreign policy, particularly the Iraq War. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005, and delivered his lecture by video because of ill health.

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