Madam, - Last summer I spent a month travelling around Iran. While there I met an Iranian friend who invited me to go shopping with her sister in Tehran. As the three of us were walking by the many bookshops which dot Enqelab Avenue, in the heart of Tehran's university area, my friend suggested that we visit a café nearby.
Imagine my surprise when I found that its walls were decorated with photographs of Samuel Beckett.
It turned out that this café, in the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was named the Café Godot and was dedicated to the Irish writer. As well as the famous photographs of Beckett taken by John Minihan, there were photographs of productions of Waiting for Godot and other plays.
All around me sat young Iranian men and women, students from the university, who were fashionably dressed. The women had their mandatory headscarves pushed back to the middle of their hair, to display their hairstyles. In this sanctuary from the traffic and noise on the road outside, all of them sat chatting, smoking and drinking coffee under the watchful gaze of the dramatist from Foxrock.
At a time when Iran features in negative news headlines, it is important to recognise the many positive aspects of this diverse and contradictory country.
It is also important, in this week in which we celebrate the centenary of Beckett's birth, to recognise the special appeal of him and his work for people throughout the world. - Yours, etc,
DAVID DOYLE, Gilford Park, Sandymount, Dublin 4.