British playwright Harold Pinter [File Photo: AFP]

British Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter died of liver cancer on Christmas Eve. He was 78.

Pinter, who wrote more than 30 plays including "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party", had been due to pick up an honorary degree earlier this month from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London but was forced to withdraw due to illness.

His second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, said that "he was great, and it was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years."

Michael Billington, Pinter's friend and biographer, said the writer was a great man as well as a great playwright, according to Sky News on Thursday.

Pinter, also an actor, poet, screenwriter and director, was known for his left-wing political views and was an outspoken critic of the U.S. and British foreign policies.

Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 and the citation said "in his plays he uncovers the precipice in everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms."

Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2002 and following treatment, announced that he was on the road to recovery.

Three years later, he announced that he had given up writing for the theater in order to concentrate on political work.

The adjective "Pinteresque" is included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2008)