William Trevor Cox
Born 24 May 1928 in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland
Father was a bank official and the family moved several times around Ireland as a result
Trevor graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a degree in history
after graduating, worked as a sculptor under the name of Trevor Cox, supplementing his income by teaching
Trevor married Jane Ryan in 1952
They emigrated to Great Britain in 1954
Worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency
Trevor’s first novel, A Standard of Behavior, was published in 1958 but was not successful; Trevor later disowned it, refusing to have it republished
Trevor was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature for the novel The Old Boys in 1964
This success encouraged him to become a full-time writer; Trevor was prolific, producing approx.. 51 works; he earned many awards and nominations throughout his career (e.g., O. Henry Award four times; nominated Booker Prize five times)
After this 1964 success, the Trevor family moved to Crediton, Devon in SW England where Trevor resided until his death 20 Nov 2016 at 88
Despite having spent most of his life in England, Trevor considered himself to be “Irish in every vein”
Trevor sets his stories in both England and Ireland; his characters are typically marginalized people, such as children, elderly, single middle-aged men and women or the unhappily married
In his early works, his wry humour give his stories a tragicomic version of the world; his later works are thematically and technically more complex, often using several narrative voices that reflect the fragmentation and uncertainty of modern life
“The Women” was first published in The New Yorker in 2013
Guardian Obituary 21 Nov 2016:
“By lopping off his family surname, William Trevor Cox provided himself with a nom-de-plume that has become synonymous with good fiction throughout the world.”
“Every sentence Trevor wrote was perfectly crafted, yet he had a love of storytelling: his first loyalty was always to the reader’s desire to find out what was going to happen next.”