Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC0

Harold Pinter's plays are built on menace, silence, and what goes unsaid — a style distinct enough that critics labeled his early work "comedy of menace." The Birthday Party closed after eight performances in 1957 but survived on a single admiring review; The Homecoming and Betrayal followed, along with screenplays for The Servant, The Go-Between, and The French Lieutenant's Woman. He refused national service as a conscientious objector and was fined for it. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005.