Novelist and short-story writer William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork on 24 May 1928. He was educated at St Columba’s College, County Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin. Initially, he was a sculptor and exhibited frequently in Dublin and London. His first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, was published in 1958.

 

He is the acclaimed author of several collections of short stories. These collections include The Day We Got Drunk on Cake and Other Stories (1967), The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories (1972), Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories (1975) and Beyond the Pale (1981). His early novels include The Old Boys (1964), winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel (1969). The Children of Dynmouth (1976) and Fools of Fortune (1983) both won the Whitbread Novel Award, and Felicia’s Journey (1994) won both the Whitbread Book of the Year and the Sunday Express Book of the Year awards.

 

William Trevor was awarded an honorary CBE in 1977 for his services to literature, and was made a Companion of Literature in 1994. He is also a member of the Irish Academy of Letters.

 

The Hill Bachelors (2000), a collection of short stories, won both the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award for Short Stories and the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction in 2001. The Story of Lucy Gault (2002) was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. William Trevor’s latest short story collections are: A Bit On the Side (2004), on the theme of adultery; The Dressmaker’s Child (2005); and Cheating at Canasta (2007). His most recent novel is Love and Summer (2009). Also in 2009, his Collected Stories was published. He was awarded the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature in 2008.

 

He lives in Devon, in South West England.