Tributes in Paris mark 100th birthday of Samuel Beckett

French and Irish fans of writer Samuel Beckett paid tribute on Thursday to the man who revolutionised 20th century theatre, marking with humour and gentle affection the 100th anniversary of his birth.

At a special breakfast in the Irish embassy in Paris, where Beckett lived and worked, writing many of his best known works in French, writers and academics paid homage to the man and the relevance of his work today.

Although Beckett struggled all his life to express what he saw as essentially the meaningless of life and the bleakness of the human condition, he did so with humour and often with kindness.

"Beckett stripped life down its essentials, and therefore to me he is as relevant today as if he were newly-minted," said Ambassador Anne Andersen, who hosted the breakfast.

"He's dealing with the fundamental themes of individual lives, of suffering and the certainty of death and the need to arm oneself with resignation and with humour."

Readings from some of his literary works by the French actor Alain Paris and Irish poet Cathel McCabe brought Beckett's voice to life in the sumputous surroundings of the embassy, which Beckett often visited to renew his passport.

Beckett, who was born near Dublin on April 13, 1906, moved to Paris in 1937 and live in the French capital until his death in 1989. He even fought alongside the French resistance during World War II, for which he was honoured by the French state with the Croix de Guerre.

Dublin is also hosting a wealth of plays, films, paintings, sculpture and music throughout April to mark the life of its Nobel laureate son.

A solitary, private man, Beckett would probably have been embarassed by the celebrations to mark his birthday, a day described as an "awful occasion" in his play "Krapp's Last Tape."

But Andersen said the breakfast, complete with Beckett's own favourite rashers of bacon, was a way of bringing together his dual identity.

"He was pervasively Irish, and you can hear that in his syntax, cadence and rhythm. But hs also chose to be in France and to write in French, and thus the French can also rightly claim him as their own."

It was also an occasion to mark Beckett's enduring legacy to the world of literature, which include such plays as "Waiting for Godot", "Endgame" and "Happy Days."

"Marking his 100th birthday like this makes it sound as if he's past and gone. But for me Beckett is still 50 years ahead of even today's contemporary writers," said Marianne Alphant, curator at the Pompidou Centre who is organising a major Beckett exhibition to be held in March 2007.

And McCabe, director of the Irish Writer's Centre in Dublin agreed, saying: "As an exemplary figure, I think Beckett is someone a lot of people would look to for his dedication, seriousness and artistic commitment."

Despite his reserve, Beckett was nevertheless said to be generous to a fault, and once emptied his pockets at the embassy to help a fellow countryman who had fallen on hard times.

And he reputedly gave away most of the money he received when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 to struggling artists.

He might well have approved then of a new association called the Beckett Project Paris launched in March to encourage new works by artists influenced by Beckett, and bring together on a website documents emerging from seminars and symposiums about the man and his work.

"Our aim is to make sure that his work will continue to exist and inspire generations of artists," said co-founder Shelia O'Leary.

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AFP 131015 GMT 04 06

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