Pinter, playwright of silences, is 2005 Nobel laureate

The son of a working-class Jewish tailor, Pinter never helped audiences to unravel his plays, telling them: “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and unreal.” The plays introduced the word ‘Pinteresque’ into the English language— a byword for drama that uses silences interspersed with half-stated insights. Fellow dramatist David Hare wrote of him: “This tribute from one writer to another: you never know what the hell’s coming next.”

Aged 75, Pinter, who was treated for cancer in 2002, has looked frail and gaunt at recent public appearances. But that has not stopped him joining fierce political debate, most recently over the war in Iraq which he has called a “bandit act”. In a fierce denunciation in March he said, “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery and degradation to the Iraqi people and called it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’.”

An impassioned crusader for Amnesty International and the anti-nuclear campaign, Pinter also carved out a distinguished career as screenwriter for such films as The French Lieutenant’s Woman, based on the John Fowles novel, and The Servant. —Reuters