Arthur Adamov was a playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, one of the foremost exponents of the Theatre of the Absurd

Theatre of the Absurd

The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...

.

Adamov (originally Adamian) was born in Kislovodsk

Kislovodsk

Kislovodsk is a city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, which lies in the North Caucasian region of the country, between the Black and Caspian Seas. The closest airport is located in the city of Mineralnye Vody. Population:...

 in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 to a wealthy Armenian

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 family, which lost its wealth in 1917. In common with many other wealthy Russians of the time, Adamov was brought up with French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 as his first language, and in 1924 he moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

In Paris Adamov met surrealists and edited the surrealist journal Discontinuité. He began to write plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, with La Parodie (1947) being his first. His work, influenced by Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

, is often dream

Dream

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...

-like and later works in particular have a political element. The title character of one of his best known works, Le Professeur Taranne (1953), is accused of various things (public nudity, littering, plagiarism), all of which he strenuously denies, only to have his denials turned against him into more evidence of misdemeanours. This particular play was directly influenced by a dream Adamov had. Lesser known to the public is his prose work with short stories like Fin Août (in Je... Ils..., 1969). Their themes revolve around topics like masochism, which the author regarded as "immunisation against death". Adamov translated a number of works by German authors (Rilke, Büchner) and Russian classics (Gogol, Chekhov) into French. During his later years, he began to drink

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 and use drugs.

Adamov's death in 1970 (Paris) may have been the result of an accidental suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 by taking an overdose of barbiturates.

Selected Plays

• L'Aveu (The Confession, 1946)
• La Parodie (The Parody, 1950)
• L'Invasion (The Invasion, 1950)
• La Grande et la Petite Manoeuvre (The Grand and Small Manoeuvre, 1950)
• Le Sens de la Marche (The Way to Go, 1953)
• Tous contre tous (All against all, 1953)
• Le Professeur Taranne (Professor Taranne, 1953)
• Le Ping-Pong (Ping Pong, 1955)
• Paolo Paoli (1957)
• Le Printemps '71 (Spring '71, 1960)
• Le Politique des Restes (The Politics of Rubbish, 1963)
• Ici et Maintenant (Here and Now, 1964)
• Sainte Europe (Holy Europe, 1966)
• M. le Modéré (Mr. Moderate, 1968)
• Off Limits (1969)
• Si l'été revenait (If Summer Came Again, 1970)