First Love is a short story by

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

, written in 1946 and first published in its original French version in 1970 and, in Beckett's English translation, in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...

. The narrator tells of his discovery on a park bench (where he loitered after becoming homeless upon the death of his father) by a

prostitute Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...

who takes him in, and of their strange "union," leading to the birth of a child and the narrator's abandonment of both. In 2001, Romanian stage director Radu Afrim developed a version for the stage in Bucharest. Ralph Fiennes also performed an adaptation live at the

Sydney Festival Sydney Festival is a major arts festival in Australia's largest city, Sydney that runs for three weeks every January, since it was established in 1977. The festival program features in excess of 100 events from local and international artists an ...

in 2007.

References

External links

12 Book published by Calder
1973 short stories Short stories by Samuel Beckett {{1940s-story-stub