Arrabal, Fernando (fārnän`dō äräbäl`), 1932–, French playwright, b. Melilla, Morocco. He studied law in Madrid before moving to Paris in 1954. His plays, which reflect his abhorrence of political repression, bourgeois complacency, and war, are often abstract and savagely ironic, employing sadism or sacrilege to shock the senses. His best known plays in English translation are The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria (1967) and And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers (1969). Other works include Oraison (1958), Théatre Bouffe (1978), and The Extravagant Triumph of Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, and William Shakespeare (1982). Arrabal has also written novels, e.g., Baal Babylon (1959, tr. 1961), screenplays, poetry, and nonfiction.

Arrabal, Fernando

(born Aug. 11, 1932, Melilla, Spanish Morocco) Spanish French Absurdist playwright, novelist, and filmmaker. He turned to writing in the 1950s, and in 1955 he began studying drama in Paris, where he remained. His early plays, in particular Picnic on the Battlefield, brought him to the attention of the French avant-garde. After the mid 1960s his plays evolved into what he termed Théâtre Panique (“Panic Theater”); typical of this period is And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers. His dramatic and fictional world is often violent, cruel, and pornographic.