Peerless artistry - William Trevor dies aged 88

THE death of William Trevor, one of the very greatest modern writers in English, leaves our world a poorer place.

However, his wide-ranging, comprehensive legacy enriches it in a way very few artists — or people in any walk of life — can equal.

His work was understated and enduring — like the tweeds he always seemed to favour. It was always focussed on the core of the matter, on the lives unfolding around him and his readers. Trevor did not do flights of fancy. He was rooted in a reality we can all recognise because we live in it. His writing seemed deceptively simple and was always gentle but his powers of perception were occasionally eviscerating.

Born in 1928, in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, William Trevor Cox is honoured in that town with a discreet monument. He was nominated for the Booker Prize four times, most recently for The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002. He did not lead a loud life and his death, at 88, is an excuse to revisit his magnificent, earthy work. Even in a year that has exacted such a heavy toll on human creativity his death stands out.