TRIBUTES to the Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter were made last night following his death on Christmas Eve.

Pinter, 78, had been suffering from cancer.

He was best known for his works The Birthday Party, Betrayal and the screenplay of The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

He was also a leading left-wing political figure and was a vociferous critic of US and UK foreign policy, voicing opposition on a number of issues including the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001.

Michael Billington, Pinter's friend and biographer, said the writer was a great man as well as a great playwright.

But he said he would remember Pinter “above all as a man of generosity”.

Mr Billington added: “Harold was a political figure, a polemicist and carried on fierce battles against American foreign policy and often British foreign policy, but in private he was the most incredibly loyal of friends and generous of human beings.”

“He was unstinting in his loyalty to the people with whom he got on and whom he communicated.

“He was a great man as well as a great playwright.”