Martin Esslin

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Martin Esslin OBE (born June 6, 1918 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary ; died February 24, 2002 in London ) was a British theater scholar , best known for his standard work Das Theater des Absurden , published in 1961 .

As editor of the British broadcaster BBC, Esslin made a significant contribution to the popularity of continental European playwrights in the English-speaking world after the Second World War .

Life

Gyula Márton Pereszlenyi's father had Hungarianized the family name . After the suppression of the Béla Kun government , in which his uncle Zoltán Rónai was Minister of Justice, the family had to flee to Austria in 1919. In 1936 Pereszlenyi applied for the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna . After Austria was annexed to the German Reich , he fled to Brussels and from there to London on a tourist visa , where he got his first job at the BBC in 1940 through the intermediary of the Bloomsbury Group and worked on German-language programs. He adapted his name ( PerESSLINyi ), and in 1947 he and Renate Gerstenberg married. In 1949 he wrote the libretto for the opera Beatrice Cenci after Shelley for the emigrant Berthold Goldschmidt . However, the opera was not premiered until 1988.

From 1961 to 1977 Esslin was initially deputy, then solely responsible, head of the drama department of the BBC broadcasting company. At the same time he gained recognition as one of the most important British theater critics. With the book Das Theater des Absurden , he comprehensively described a new trend that ranged from Samuel Beckett , Eugène Ionesco and Jean Genet to Jean Tardieu and Fernando Arrabal to Harold Pinter , Edward Albee , Max Frisch , Wolfgang Hildesheimer and Günter Grass . Esslin made sure that many continental European pieces were translated into English for the first time . Often they were first played in the BBC versions on British stages.

After a teaching position at Florida State University (from 1969), he gave up his work at the BBC in 1977 to teach at Stanford University until 1988 .

The Republic of Austria appointed him adjunct professor , in Great Britain he became OBE in 1972.

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personal data
SURNAME Esslin, Martin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pereszlenyi, Martin (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theater scholar
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 2002
Place of death London