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Since his notorious 1961 lecture, ´Trying to Understand Endgame´, Theodor W. Adorno´s name has been frequently coupled with that of Samuel Beckett. This book offers a radical reappraisal of the intellectual affinities between these two figures, whose paths crossed all too fleetingly. Specifically the book argues for a preoccupation with the concept of freedom in Beckett´s works - one which situates him as a profoundly radical and even political writer. Adorno´s own more explicit reconceptualization of freedom and its scarcity in modernity offers a unique lens through which to examine the way Beckett´s works preserve a minimal space of freedom that acts in opposition to an unfree social totality. While acknowledging both the biographical encounters between Adorno and Beckett and the influence Beckett´s writings had on Adorno´s aesthetics, Natalie Leeder goes further to establish a dialogue between their intellectual positions, working with a range of texts from both writers and seeking insight in Adorno´s less familiar works, as well as his magnum opera, Aesthetic Theory and Negative Dialectics.

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