Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930) is an English playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor, director, author, and political activist, best known for his plays The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), and also for his screenplay adaptations of novels by others, such as The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1980), and The Trial (1993).
The recipient of scores of awards and honorary degrees, Pinter received the Nobel Prize in Literature from the Swedish Academy in December 2005. In its citation, the Academy states that "Harold Pinter is generally regarded as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century."