Samuel Beckett was born on April 13, 1906, in Dublin, Ireland. He was a good student who loved languages. He moved to Paris, France, as a young man and spent most of his life there. He even wrote many of his works in French first, then translated them into English. In 1953, his play Waiting for Godot opened in Paris. The plot sounds strange. Two men named Vladimir and Estragon stand by a tree. They wait for someone called Godot. They talk, argue, and tell jokes. A boy arrives and says Godot will come tomorrow. The next day, the same thing happens. Godot never arrives. When the play premiered, the audience was bewildered. Some people walked out. Others stayed and cheered. Critics could not agree on what it meant. Was it about hope? About the meaning of life? About how people fill time? Beckett refused to explain. He said the play speaks for itself. Despite the confusion, Waiting for Godot became one of the most influential plays of the twentieth century. Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. He was so private that he did not attend the ceremony.