UK playwright Harold Pinter dies

Many of Pinter's plays are considered classics

Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter has died aged 78.

Pinter, who died on Christmas Eve, had been suffering from liver cancer, it is understood.

Pinter wrote more than 30 plays including The Caretaker, The Homecoming and The Dumb Waiter. His film scripts include The French Lieutenant's Woman.

His second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, told the Guardian newspaper: "He was a great, and it was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years."

He had been due to pick up an honorary degree earlier this month from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London but was forced to withdraw due to illness.

Political views

BBC Creative Director Alan Yentob told the BBC: "He was a unique figure in British theatre. He has dominated the theatre scene since the 1950s."

Sunday Telegraph theatre critic Tim Walker said: "This was a man who had plays with long silences, where characters did not always go anywhere - very much like real life.

"He brought a realism to the business."

Harold Pinter in The Birthday Party

Also an actor, poet, screenwriter and director, Pinter was known for his left-wing political views and was an outspoken critic of US and UK foreign policy.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, he citation said: "in his plays he uncovers the precipice in everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".

He was awarded a CBE in 1966, later turned down a knighthood and became a Companion of Honour, an exclusive award in the gift of the Sovereign, in 2002.

Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2002 and following treatment, announced that he was on the road to recovery.

Three years later, he announced that he had given up writing for the theatre in order to concentrate on political work.

The adjective "Pinteresque" is included in the Oxford English Dictionary.