The first IATL Honorary Fellowship: Fernando Arrabal, Iconic Theatre Artist

The first IATL Honorary Fellowship is awarded to Fernando Arrabal, the legendary man of the theatre whose oeuvre and biography seem to have defied the laws of time and history.

At 91, the Spanish-born writer remains a beacon of creativity and originality for the world of performing arts. Included by Martin Esslin in the gallery of figures that shaped the “theatre of the absurd” in the 1950s, he has been constantly reinventing himself through bold and imaginative experiments, authoring 100 plays, 14 novels and over 800 poetry collections.

The famed New York Times critic Mel Gussow once said: “Any play by Arrabal is an event [. . .]”, naming him the last survivor among the “three avatars of modernism”, a short list that included Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht as the only other names. Today, to be able to celebrate Arrabal and his legacy is indeed an event for all of us.

The IATL Community from more than 70 different countries welcomes this auspicious occasion to pay tribute to a theatre leader who has been a guiding light for generations of artists around the globe.