How did Samuel Beckett take part in the French Resistance during World War II?

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Samuel Beckett, 1965 — Samuel Beckett Irish playwright, author, and critic Samuel Beckett, known for his plays on existential themes, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Although Samuel Beckett was a citizen of Ireland—a country that remained neutral during World War II—he chose to take a moral stand against the occupation of France by joining an underground resistance group in 1941.1

In 1942, after learning that members of his resistance cell had been arrested by the Gestapo, Beckett immediately went into hiding to avoid capture. He eventually fled to the unoccupied zone of France, where he remained until the country's liberation, supporting himself by working as an agricultural laborer. During this period of hiding, he also continued his literary work, completing the novel Watt.12

Following the war, Beckett’s contributions to the resistance were formally recognized when he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.1