"The New York Times called the announcement of Dario Fo's Nobel Prize in Literature "among the most unexpected and controversial in the ninety-seven-year history of the award." Some writers, politicians, clergymen, and self-proclaimed arbiters of culture were outraged by Fo's selection. Others sensed that the choice was courageous, not because of Fo's unorthodox politics but because of his unorthodox use of language and humor.

In honoring for the first time a writer who is also an actor and a clown, the Swedish Academy expanded the officially recognized boundaries of literature to include the language of the body and the muscular truth of slapstick.".

"Dario Fo and Franca Rame: Artful Laughter illuminates the carnival sensibilities of Fo and his life-long collaborator Franca Rame with an emphasis on the pictorial roots of their comedy. Drawing is essential to Fo's topsy-turvy vision of the world, and this book includes whimsical paintings and sketches by Fo that have never been published in the United States. It also includes excerpts from plays by him and Rame that have never before appeared in English.

Fo is one of the world's most frequently produced living playwrights, and readers who encounter this collection of Fo's zany Harlequins and anarchic confidence men will understand why."--BOOK JACKET.