Prolific playwright Arnold Wesker dies

LONDON – Prolific playwright Arnold Wesker, who drew on his Jewish heritage to create works that captured the dialogue and struggles of the working class, has died. He was 83.

Wesker’s son, Lindsay, says his father died Tuesday. He had Parkinson’s disease.

Though he wrote more than 40 plays translated into 18 languages, Wesker was most famous for a trilogy of works — “Chicken Soup With Barley,” ”Roots,” and “I’m Talking About Jerusalem.”

The works explore life for the communist Kahn family, who find their family and political ideology disintegrating in the 1930s.

Other well-known plays were “Chips With Everything,” based on his service in the Royal Air Force, and “The Kitchen,” based on his early days as a pastry cook.

Wesker was knighted in 2006 for services to drama.