Hannah Simpson is the Rosemary Pountney Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. She is also the Theatre Review Editor at The Beckett Circle.

A wide-ranging and important book, incisively argued, original and compelling... It will be an important reference point in future scholarship, orienting research in modern French literary studies, and at the intersection of pain studies and literary studies, for some time to come.

• Introduction: 'PAIN PAIN PAIN': Samuel Beckett, World War II, and Francophone Theatre 1: The Indifferent Spectator: Eleutheria and Albert Camus 2: Cruelty, Contagion, and Comedy: Waiting for Godot 3: The Aesthetic of the Anaesthetic: Endgame and Pablo Picasso 4: Transcending Pain, Theatricalising Pain: Happy Days, Play, and Eugène Ionesco 5: Testimony and Trauma: Not I and Marguerite Duras's L'Amante anglaise Conclusion: Breath: Distance, Intimacy, and the Empathic

Hannah Simpson is the Rosemary Pountney Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. She is also the Theatre Review Editor at The Beckett Circle.

A wide-ranging and important book, incisively argued, original and compelling... It will be an important reference point in future scholarship, orienting research in modern French literary studies, and at the intersection of pain studies and literary studies, for some time to come.

• Introduction: 'PAIN PAIN PAIN': Samuel Beckett, World War II, and Francophone Theatre 1: The Indifferent Spectator: Eleutheria and Albert Camus 2: Cruelty, Contagion, and Comedy: Waiting for Godot 3: The Aesthetic of the Anaesthetic: Endgame and Pablo Picasso 4: Transcending Pain, Theatricalising Pain: Happy Days, Play, and Eugène Ionesco 5: Testimony and Trauma: Not I and Marguerite Duras's L'Amante anglaise Conclusion: Breath: Distance, Intimacy, and the Empathic

Hannah Simpson is the Rosemary Pountney Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. She is also the Theatre Review Editor at The Beckett Circle.

A wide-ranging and important book, incisively argued, original and compelling... It will be an important reference point in future scholarship, orienting research in modern French literary studies, and at the intersection of pain studies and literary studies, for some time to come.

• Introduction: 'PAIN PAIN PAIN': Samuel Beckett, World War II, and Francophone Theatre 1: The Indifferent Spectator: Eleutheria and Albert Camus 2: Cruelty, Contagion, and Comedy: Waiting for Godot 3: The Aesthetic of the Anaesthetic: Endgame and Pablo Picasso 4: Transcending Pain, Theatricalising Pain: Happy Days, Play, and Eugène Ionesco 5: Testimony and Trauma: Not I and Marguerite Duras's L'Amante anglaise Conclusion: Breath: Distance, Intimacy, and the Empathic