Martin McDonagh is one of the more notable of the younger generation of Britain’s playwrights. Although concerned with both unthinking and more calculating violence of our times, his work has been recognised with numerous critical awards and achieved popularity with the theatre-going public.

McDonagh was born in Elephant and Castle, South London, on 26 March 1970, to Irish immigrant parents living in a strongly Irish community. He rejected traditional education, leaving school at sixteen and taking ad hoc jobs to fund his writing career. After leaving school he wrote twenty-two radio plays (which were all rejected) and numerous screenplays, and it was not until he turned his hand to playwriting (by his own admission the only

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First published 01 September 2004

Citation: Rees, Catherine. "Martin McDonagh". The Literary Encyclopedia. 1 September 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5811, accessed 9 February 2010.]