William Trevor, one of Ireland's most internationally revered writers, will tonight be honoured at an award's ceremony in Dublin. Mr Trevor (73), author of 12 novels and nine collections of short stories, will be awarded the Irish PEN/A.T. Cross Award for his lifetime's achievement.
In a career established in 1964 with the publication of his second novel The Old Boys, Trevor has won many literary prizes including three Whitbread Fiction awards and the Whitbread Book of the Year for Felicia's Journey.
Tonight's presentation is his second lifetime's achievement award. In 1999 he received the David Cohen British Literature Prize for his body of work.
Although he has written several fine novels including The Old Boys, Elizabeth Alone, The Children of Dynmouth, Fools of Fortune, Felicia's Journey, Death in Summer and the Booker shortlisted novella Reading Turgenev, many critics maintain his genius lies in his mastery of the short story. Whatever form he chooses, Trevor invariably succeeds in rendering the ordinary and familiar, new and shocking. Behind the grace, there is often a sinister undertone at work.
Having settled in England almost 50 years ago, he has never lost his understanding of Ireland's complex culture. Some critics dispute this, feeling him out of touch with his country. Yet Trevor has insisted he needs this distance. The Ireland in his fiction continues to ring true is evident from The Hill Bachelors collection (2000). Diverse and subtle, his work with its theme of small lives and silent pain, is also set in England and Italy.
Previously awarded to John B. Keane, Brian Friel and Edna O'Brien, the award by Irish PEN, the society for Irish writers, poets and playwrights, is an endorsement by one's peers.
