The Hindu : International : It's all over, says Pinter

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 02, 2005

International

International

It's all over, says Pinter

London: There will be no more plays from the pen of Harold Pinter, Britain's most distinguished living playwright. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Mr. Pinter has produced such masterpieces as The Homecoming, Betrayal, The Birthday Party and The Caretaker. And, though recent work has failed to match in brilliance the glittering gems of the past, he is still the acknowledged grandee of the British stage. But now it is all over, the 74-year-old told BBC Radio 4's Front Row last night. ``I think I've stopped writing plays now, but I haven't stopped writing poems,'' he said. ``I think I've written 29 plays. Isn't that enough? I think it's enough for me. I've found other forms now.'' Mr. Pinter has indeed increasingly turned to poetry as his preferred genre, publishing a collection, entitled War, in 2003, which expressed his passionate opposition to the Iraq conflict. One poem, published in the Guardian in 2003, expressed the writer's disaffection thus: ``Your head rolls onto the sand/ Your head is a pool in the dirt/ Your head is a stain in the dust/ Your eyes have gone out and your nose/ Sniffs only the pong of the dead/ And all the dead air is alive/ With the smell of America's God.''

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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