Harold Pinter

Pinter transformed modern theatre with spare, menacing dialogue in which silences and everyday small talk reveal hidden threat and struggles for power — a style so distinctive it is called 'Pinteresque' — and received the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote for stage and screen and became an outspoken political voice. He was born into a Jewish family in the East End of London, the son of a tailor, and grew up experiencing British antisemitism.