Novelist and short story writer William Trevor passes away

Tributes have been paid to the late novelist William Trevor, who has passed away at the age of 88.

The multi-awardwinning writer was born in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, and was named a saoi in Aosdána by President Michael D Higgins just last year, marking a hugely successful career which saw him shortlisted for the Booker Prize on four occasions.

Born William Trevor Cox, he had lived much of his life in England, but the town of his birth paid its own tribute to him when, they invited him to attend the unveiling of a sculpture in his honour in 2004.

At that event, Mr Trevor recalled how his father, James, worked in the Bank of Ireland and because of this it meant a lot of moving in his young life, with the family switching from Mitchelstown to Youghal, Skibbereen, Tipperary, Enniscorthy, Portlaoise, Armagh, and Galway.

Yesterday, the chairman of Mitchelstown Heritage Society, Andrew Dineen, said Mr Trevor was “very proud” of his north Cork roots and his death marked “the end of an era”.

Mr Trevor was educated at St Columba’s College in Dublin and later graduated in history from Trinity College Dublin.

He also met his future wife, Jane Ryan, at TCD and they moved to England, where he initially began work as a sculptor.

William Trevor: Won the Whitbread Prize three times but not the Booker.

In London, he then worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency, during which time he began writing fiction. He subsequently disowned his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, first published in 1958, and instead referred to his 1964 work The Old Boys as his first novel. Set in London, it won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature.

He wrote more than 15 novels, many of them set in Ireland, and won the Whitbread Prize three times.

He was last shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002, when the prize was awarded to Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi.

He was also a regular contributor to the New Yorker and was an acclaimed short story writer. He lived for many years in Devon but he regularly visited Ireland.

Publishers Penguin Random House said that he had passed away on Sunday night.

He is survived by his wife Jane and their two sons, Patrick and Dominic.

Sheila Pratschke, chair of the Arts Council said that: “William Trevor was a writer of extraordinary gifts and achievement. A novelist, playwright and, perhaps most famously, a short story writer, Trevor was a true master of his craft, and has profoundly influenced a generation of writers, in Ireland and abroad.”