25 Facts About William Trevor

William Trevor Cox, known by his pen name William Trevor, was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer.

William Trevor's name was mentioned in relation to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

William Trevor won the 2008 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

William Trevor resided in England from 1954 until his death at the age of 88.

William Trevor moved several times to other provincial towns, including Skibbereen, Tipperary, Youghal and Enniscorthy, as a result of his father's work as a bank official.

William Trevor was educated at St Columba's College in Dublin, and at Trinity College Dublin, from which he received a degree in history.

William Trevor worked as a sculptor under the name William Trevor Cox after his graduation from Trinity College, supplementing his income by teaching.

William Trevor married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to Great Britain two years later, working as a copywriter for an advertising agency.

William Trevor later disowned this work, and, according to his obituary in the Irish Times, "refused to have it republished".

In 1964, at the age of 36, William Trevor was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature for The Old Boys.

William Trevor died peacefully in his sleep on 20 November 2016.

William Trevor wrote several collections of short stories that were well received.

The characters in William Trevor's work are typically marginalized members of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married.

William Trevor acknowledged the influence of James Joyce on his short-story writing, and "the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal" can be detected in his work, but the overall impression is not of gloominess, since, particularly in his early work, the author's wry humour offers the reader a tragicomic version of the world.

William Trevor adapted much of his work for stage, television and radio.

William Trevor set his stories in both England and Ireland; they range from black comedies to tales based on Irish history and politics.

William Trevor explored the decaying institution of the "Big House" in his novels Fools of Fortune and The Story of Lucy Gault.

William Trevor was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters and Aosdana.

William Trevor was awarded an honorary CBE in 1977 for "services to literature", and was made a Companion of Literature in 1994.

William Trevor won the 2008 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

William Trevor was nominated for the Booker Prize five times, making the shortlist in 1970,1976,1991 and 2002, and the longlist in 2009.

William Trevor won the Whitbread Prize three times and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature once.

Since 2002, when non-American authors became eligible to compete for the O Henry Award, William Trevor won the award four times, for his stories Sacred Statues, The Dressmaker's Child, The Room, a juror favourite of that year, and Folie a Deux.

William Trevor was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2011.

On 23 May 2008, the eve of his 80th birthday, a commemorative plaque, indicating the house on Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown where William Trevor was born, was unveiled by Louis McRedmond.