The decade, the year and the term of a Society President move all too quickly.
I’m still not quite over the recent Samuel Beckett Society conference, though. The energy and inspiration of those few days in Antwerp will stay with me. Another wonderful event, organized impeccably by Dirk van Hulle, Olga Beloborodova and Pim Verhulst, and brought to life by a community of old friends and new. The Gothic rafters and twenty-first century screens of the Hof van Liere in Antwerp made for a brilliant setting for the enthralling talks, sparkling conversation—and excellent sandwiches. The watchword of the Society could, for me, be warmth and this conference was no exception: time and again, new attendees came up and told me how friendly, welcoming and supportive people had been. The exhibition of Samuel Beckett’s books curated by Dirk and Mark Nixon in the venue library captured the rich traditions of biographical and genetic scholarship in evidence here, put into conversation with translation and performance research, equally vibrant strands of Beckett activity, through the TCD Beckett Laboratory’s exploration of the unpublished Mittelalterliches Dreieck / Medieval Triangle at the Theatre Zuidpool. We enjoyed a gripping reading by Beckett International Foundation fellow Eimear McBride, an exquisite musical setting of Beckett’s late prose piece ‘Sounds’ by Juilliard musician Manuel Sosa, and even some hip-hop inspired Beckett in a talk by actor Jeni Jones, in an endlessly rich programme. (Belgian beers may also have been sampled.) Congratulations to the organizers, programme committee, our Ruby Cohn Bursary winners, and all speakers on a superb set of papers and events.
The conference also saw, as tradition dictates, the announcement of next year’s Society conference, a long-awaited event taking place in Bordeaux, France. The Society conference there was postponed because of Covid in 2020, and we were delighted to hear from organizer Pascale Sardin about exciting plans for it finally to take place in 2027. The theme is ‘Beckett East and South’, June 9-11th 2027, exploring Beckett’s move East to France and his connections with Tunisia and Morocco, as well as his frequent trips to Germany, Italy, and England. It also celebrates the Beckettian performance history as well as his influences on contemporary writing in the Global South. It will be run jointly by Pascale Sardin and Karine Germoni, through Bordeaux Montaigne University, Sorbonne University and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, with a hybrid dimension to allow for maximum participation for those scholars East and South—as well as elsewhere—doing groundbreaking work on and with Beckett. The call for papers will be published presently.
In this spirit, I am delighted to see the celebration of our global community in this issue. Ali A. Alizad, an Iranian CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics) Research Fellow at the University of Cardiff, writes compellingly about Beckett’s late drama as performed in Teheran. Feargal Whelan reviews Sarah Jane Scaife’s Beckett sa Chreig: Guth na mBan, the recent Irish-language production (which also featured memorably in Chloé Duane’s paper at the Antwerp conference). Members of the Samuel Beckett Working Group, part of the International Federation of Theatre Research, take stock of thirty years of sterling work. And we celebrate the international offering of next year’s MLA in Los Angeles: papers and discussion on performing, reading and teaching Beckett in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan, France and the US, as well as an examination of Beckett’s own formative international influences.
Meanwhile we have seen a rich set of activities by Beckett scholars, artists and writers since the last issue, including the continuation of the Early Career Scholars’ Initiative with an online seminar on ‘conferencing’, organized by Katherine Weiss, Patrick Bixby and David Pattie; events celebrating Beckett’s 120th birthday, including a special iteration of the annual Beckett Brunch at Trinity, and Just Human, an online discussion featuring the Pakistani translator of a new Urdu Godot, Ahmad Umar Ayaz; and Gare St Lazare’s new staging of How It Is premiering at the Venice Biennale.
Books appeared by Society members and friends including former president Patrick Bixby’s Quotidian Beckett (CUP Elements), Society stalwart James Martell’s Beckett and Derrida (CUP Elements, reviewed in this issue), and Elsa Baroghel’s Sadean Intertext and Aesthetics in Samuel Beckett’s Works (OUP). The special 50th anniversary issue of Journal of Beckett Studies landed, as well as the new SBTA (‘Beckett’s Environments’) and a new Spanish-language Beckettiana for good measure.
Beckett also had a bumper year in Germany, as it were, with a Beckett festival in Berlin and a symposium for the opening of the ‘Samuel Beckett: the German Room’ exhibition in Regensburg, both reviewed here by Vanesa Cotroneo, coinciding with the research performance of Mittelalterliches Dreieck and Mark Nixon’s forthcoming edition of The German Diaries. With next year’s Society conference in Bordeaux, new books on Beckett with Lefebvre, Sade and Derrida, and other tantalising rumours in the ether, something tells me next year might be a year for French and Francophone Becketts, among other things.
Much still lies ahead this year too. The Society’s early career mentorship scheme will get underway. We look forward to another Grey Pluralities seminar run by Swati Joshi, on the intriguing topic of skin, ‘The Ultimate Cell in Samuel Beckett’ (28th November 2026, online). The Mary Bryden studentship will welcome its first PhD student to the University of Reading. Scholars eagerly await access to Samuel Beckett’s library which is currently residing at Antwerp having been graciously donated to the Beckett International Foundation at Reading by Edward Beckett. And much more besides.
I want to thank my other Board members, Julie Bates, José Francisco Fernandez, Lucas Margarit, Katherine Weiss and Feargal Whelan, as ever, and congratulate editors Feargal and Patrick Bixby on another wonderful Review.
Have as good a year as these times allow. We wish you all very well.
Liz
The Beckett Review 
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