Seamus Heaney - Wikipedia Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney MRIA Seamus Heaney ( 2009 ) ( 1939 - 04 - 13 ) 13 April 1939 Castledawson, Northern Ireland 30 August 2013 ( 2013 - 08 - 30 ) ( aged 74 ) Blackrock, Dublin Occupation Poet, playwright, translator Nationality Irish Period 1966 -- 2013 Notable works Death of a Naturalist ( 1966 ) North ( 1975 ) Field Work ( 1979 ) The Spirit Level ( 1996 ) Beowulf ( translation, 1999 ) District and Circle ( 2006 ) Human Chain ( 2011 ) Notable awards Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, 1968 E.M. Forster Award, 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1995 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, 1996 Saoi of Aosdána, 1997 Golden Wreath of Poetry, 2001 T.S. Eliot Prize, 2006 The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry Lifetime Recognition Award, 2012 Spouse Marie Devlin ( 1965 -- 2013 ) Children Michael Christopher Catherine Ann Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA ( / ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni / ; 13 April 1939 -- 30 August 2013 ) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best - known works is Death of a Naturalist ( 1966 ), his first major published volume. Heaney was born in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland. His family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. He became a lecturer at St. Joseph 's College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen 's University and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, from 1976 until his death. He also lived part - time in the United States from 1981 to 2006. Heaney was recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry during his lifetime. Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize ( 1968 ), the E.M. Forster Award ( 1975 ), the PEN Translation Prize ( 1985 ), the Golden Wreath of Poetry ( 2001 ), the T.S. Eliot Prize ( 2006 ) and two Whitbread Prizes ( 1996 and 1999 ). In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland. American poet Robert Lowell described him as `` the most important Irish poet since Yeats '', and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was `` the greatest poet of our age ''. Robert Pinsky has stated that `` with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story - teller. '' Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as `` probably the best - known poet in the world ''. His body is buried at the Cemetery of St. Mary 's Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph `` Walk on air against your better judgement '', from one of his poems, `` The Gravel Walks ''. Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 1957 -- 1969 2.2 1970 -- 84 2.3 1985 -- 99 2.4 2000s 2.5 2010s 3 Death 4 Work 4.1 Naturalism 4.2 Politics 4.3 Translation 4.4 Plays and prose 4.5 Use in school syllabuses 5 Legacy 6 Publications 6.1 Poetry : main collections 6.2 Poetry : selected editions 6.3 Prose : main collections 6.4 Prose : selected editions 6.5 Plays 6.6 Translations 6.7 Limited editions and booklets ( poetry, prose, and translatons ) 7 Critical studies of Heaney 8 Selected discography 9 Major prizes and honours 10 See also 11 References 12 External links Early life From Mid-Term Break Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in a cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year. from `` Mid-term break '', Death of a Naturalist ( 1966 ) Heaney was born on 13 April 1939, at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, between Castledawson and Toomebridge ; he was the first of nine children. In 1953, his family moved to Bellaghy, a few miles away, which is now the family home. His father, Patrick Heaney ( d. October 1986 ), was the eighth child of ten born to James and Sarah Heaney. Patrick was a farmer, but his real commitment was to cattle dealing, to which he was introduced by the uncles who had cared for him after the early death of his own parents. Heaney 's mother, Margaret Kathleen McCann ( 1911 -- 1984 ), who bore nine children, came from the McCann family. Her uncles and relations were employed in the local linen mill, and her aunt had worked as a maid for the mill owner 's family. Heaney commented that his parentage contained both the Ireland of the cattle - herding Gaelic past and the Ulster of the Industrial Revolution ; he considered this to have been a significant tension in his background. Heaney initially attended Anahorish Primary School ; when he was twelve years old, he won a scholarship to St. Columb 's College, a Roman Catholic boarding school situated in Derry. Heaney 's younger brother, Christopher, was killed in a road accident while Heaney was studying at St. Columb 's. The poems `` Mid-Term Break '' and `` The Blackbird of Glanmore '' are related to his brother 's death. Career 1957 -- 1969 Further information on his works during this period : Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark Seamus Heaney in 1970 From `` Digging '' My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner 's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I 've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I 'll dig with it. from `` Digging '', Death of a Naturalist ( 1966 ) In 1957, Heaney travelled to Belfast to study English Language and Literature at Queen 's University Belfast. During his time in Belfast, he found a copy of Ted Hughes 's Lupercal, which spurred him to write poetry. `` Suddenly, the matter of contemporary poetry was the material of my own life, '' he said. He graduated in 1961 with a First Class Honours degree. During teacher training at St Joseph 's Teacher Training College in Belfast ( now merged with St Mary 's, University College ), Heaney went on a placement to St Thomas ' secondary Intermediate School in west Belfast. The headmaster of this school was the writer Michael McLaverty from County Monaghan, who introduced Heaney to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh. With McLaverty 's mentorship, Heaney first started to publish poetry in 1962. Hillan describes how McLaverty was like a foster father to the younger Belfast poet. In the introduction to McLaverty 's Collected Works, Heaney summarised the poet 's contribution and influence : `` His voice was modestly pitched, he never sought the limelight, yet for all that, his place in our literature is secure. '' Heaney 's poem Fosterage, in the sequence Singing School from North ( 1975 ), is dedicated to him. In 1963, Heaney became a lecturer at St Joseph 's, and in the spring of 1963, after contributing various articles to local magazines, he came to the attention of Philip Hobsbaum, then an English lecturer at Queen 's University. Hobsbaum set up a Belfast Group of local young poets ( to mirror the success he had with the London group ), and Heaney was able to meet other Belfast poets such as Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. In August 1965, he married Marie Devlin, a school teacher and native of Ardboe, County Tyrone. ( Also a writer, Devlin published Over Nine Waves ( 1994 ), a collection of traditional Irish myths and legends. ) Heaney 's first book, Eleven Poems, was published in November 1965 for the Queen 's University Festival. In 1966, Faber and Faber published his first major volume, called Death of a Naturalist. This collection was met with much critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Gregory Award for Young Writers and the Geoffrey Faber Prize. Also in 1966, Heaney was appointed as a lecturer in Modern English Literature at Queen 's University Belfast. That year his first son, Michael, was born. A second son, Christopher, was born in 1968. That same year, with Michael Longley, Heaney took part in a reading tour called Room to Rhyme, which increased awareness of the poet 's work. In 1969, his second major volume, Door into the Dark, was published. 1970 -- 84 Further information on his works during this period : Wintering Out, North ( poetry collection ), Field Work ( poetry collection ), and Selected Poems 1965 - 1975 After a spell as guest lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, Heaney returned in 1971 to Queen 's University. In 1972, Heaney left his lectureship at Belfast, moved to Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland, and began writing on a full - time basis. In the same year, he published Wintering Out. Over the next few years, Heaney began to give readings throughout Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. In 1975, Heaney published his fourth volume, North. A pamphlet of prose poems entitled Stations was published the same year. He became Head of English at Carysfort College in Dublin in 1976, and he moved with his family to Sandymount in that city. His next volume, Field Work, was published in 1979. Selected Poems 1965 - 1975 and Preoccupations : Selected Prose 1968 -- 1978 were published in 1980. When Aosdána, the national Irish Arts Council, was established in 1981, Heaney was among those elected into its first group. ( He was subsequently elected a Saoi, one of its five elders and its highest honour, in 1997 ). Also in 1981, Heaney traveled to the United States as a visiting professor at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House. He was awarded two honorary doctorates, from Queen 's University and from Fordham University in New York City ( 1982 ). At the Fordham commencement ceremony on 23 May 1982, Heaney delivered his address as a 46 - stanza poem entitled `` Verses for a Fordham Commencement. '' Born and educated in Northern Ireland, Heaney stressed that he was Irish and not British. Following the success of the Field Day Theatre Company 's production of Brian Friel 's Translations, the founders Brian Friel and Stephen Rea decided to make the company a permanent group. Heaney joined the company 's expanded Board of Directors in 1981. In autumn 1984, his mother, Margaret, died. 1985 -- 99 Further information on his works during this period : Station Island ( poetry ), The Haw Lantern, The Cure at Troy, and The Spirit Level ( poetry collection ) Marie and Seamus Heaney at the Dominican Church, Kraków, Poland, 4 October 1996 Heaney received a tenure position at Harvard, becoming Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University ( formerly Visiting Professor ), serving 1985 -- 1997, and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence at Harvard 1998 -- 2006. In 1986, Heaney received a Litt. D. from Bates College. His father, Patrick, died in October the same year. The loss of both parents within two years affected Heaney deeply, and he expressed his grief in poems. In 1988, a collection of his critical essays, The Government of the Tongue, was published. In 1985 Heaney wrote the poem `` From the Republic of Conscience '' at the request of Amnesty International Ireland. He wanted to `` celebrate United Nations Day and the work of Amnesty ''. The poem inspired the title of Amnesty International 's highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. In 1988, Heaney donated his lecture notes to the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Library ( MARBL ) of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, after giving the notable Ellmann Lecture in Modern Literature there. In 1989, Heaney was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, which he held for a five - year term to 1994. The chair does not require residence in Oxford. Throughout this period, he was dividing his time between Ireland and the United States. He also continued to give public readings. So well attended and keenly anticipated were these events that those who queued for tickets with such enthusiasm were sometimes dubbed `` Heaneyboppers '', suggesting an almost teenybopper fan base. In 1990, The Cure at Troy, his play based on Sophocles 's Philoctetes, was published to much acclaim. The next year, he published another volume of poetry, Seeing Things ( 1991 ). Heaney was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature ( 1991 ). In 1993, Heaney guest - edited The Mays Anthology, a collection of new writing from students at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. That same year, he was awarded the Dickinson College Arts Award and returned to the Pennsylvania college to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. He was scheduled to return to Dickinson again to receive the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Award -- for a major literary figure -- at the time of his death in 2013. Irish poet Paul Muldoon was named recipient of the award that year, partly in recognition of the close connection between the two poets. Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 for what the Nobel committee described as `` works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past ''. He was on holiday in Greece with his wife when the news broke. Neither journalists nor his own children could reach him until he arrived at Dublin Airport two days later, although an Irish television camera traced him to Kalamata. Asked how he felt to have his name added to the Irish Nobel pantheon of William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett, Heaney responded : `` It 's like being a little foothill at the bottom of a mountain range. You hope you just live up to it. It 's extraordinary. '' He and his wife Marie were immediately taken from the airport to Áras an Uachtaráin for champagne with President Mary Robinson. Heaney 's 1996 collection The Spirit Level won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award ; he repeated the success in 1999 with Beowulf : A New Translation. Heaney was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1996 and was admitted in 1997. In the same year, Heaney was elected Saoi of Aosdána. In 1998, Heaney was elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. 2000s The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, which was officially opened at Queen 's University Belfast in 2004 In 2000, Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate and delivered the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002, Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University and delivered a public lecture on `` The Guttural Muse ''. In 2003, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry was opened at Queen 's University Belfast. It houses the Heaney Media Archive, a record of Heaney 's entire oeuvre, along with a full catalogue of his radio and television presentations. That same year, Heaney decided to lodge a substantial portion of his literary archive at Emory University as a memorial to the work of William M. Chace, the university 's recently retired president. The Emory papers represented the largest repository of Heaney 's work ( 1964 -- 2003 ). He donated these to help build their large existing archive of material from Irish writers including Yeats, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley and other members of The Belfast Group. In 2003, when asked if there was any figure in popular culture who aroused interest in poetry and lyrics, Heaney praised American rap artist Eminem from Detroit, saying, `` He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also his verbal energy. '' Heaney wrote the poem `` Beacons at Bealtaine '' to mark the 2004 EU Enlargement. He read the poem at a ceremony for the 25 leaders of the enlarged European Union, arranged by the Irish EU presidency. In August 2006, Heaney suffered a stroke. Although he recovered and joked, `` Blessed are the pacemakers '' when fitted with a heart monitor, he cancelled all public engagements for several months. He was in County Donegal at the time of the 75th birthday of Anne Friel, wife of playwright Brian Friel. He read the works of Henning Mankell, Donna Leon and Robert Harris while in hospital. Among his visitors was former President Bill Clinton. Heaney 's District and Circle won the 2006 T.S. Eliot Prize. In 2008, he became artist of honour in Østermarie, Denmark, and Seamus Heaney Stræde ( street ) was named after him. In 2009, Heaney was presented with an Honorary - Life Membership award from the University College Dublin ( UCD ) Law Society, in recognition of his remarkable role as a literary figure. Faber and Faber published Dennis O'Driscoll 's book Stepping Stones : Interviews with Seamus Heaney in 2008 ; this has been described as the nearest thing to an autobiography of Heaney. In 2009, Heaney was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He spoke at the West Belfast Festival 2010 in celebration of his mentor, the poet and novelist Michael McLaverty, who had helped Heaney to first publish his poetry. 2010s In 2010, Faber published Human Chain, Heaney 's twelfth collection. Human Chain was awarded the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, one of the major poetry prizes Heaney had never previously won, despite having been twice shortlisted. The book, published 44 years after the poet 's first, was inspired in part by Heaney 's stroke in 2006, which left him `` babyish '' and `` on the brink ''. Poet and Forward judge Ruth Padel described the work as `` a collection of painful, honest and delicately weighted poems... a wonderful and humane achievement. '' Writer Colm Tóibín described Human Chain as `` his best single volume for many years, and one that contains some of the best poems he has written... is a book of shades and memories, of things whispered, of journeys into the underworld, of elegies and translations, of echoes and silences. '' In October 2010, the collection was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Heaney was named one of `` Britain 's top 300 intellectuals '' by The Observer in 2011, though the newspaper later published a correction acknowledging that `` several individuals who would not claim to be British '' had been featured, of which Heaney was one. That same year, he contributed translations of Old Irish marginalia for Songs of the Scribe, an album by Traditional Singer in Residence of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin. In December 2011, he donated his personal literary notes to the National Library of Ireland. Even though he admitted he would likely have earned a fortune by auctioning them, Heaney personally packed up the boxes of notes and drafts and, accompanied by his son Michael, delivered them to the National Library. In June 2012, Heaney accepted the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry 's Lifetime Recognition Award and gave a speech in honour of the award. Heaney was compiling a collection of his work in anticipation of Selected Poems 1988 - 2013 at the time of his death. The selection includes poems and writings from Seeing Things, The Spirit Level, the translation of Beowulf, Electric Light, District and Circle, and Human Chain ( fall 2014 ). In February 2014, Emory University premiered Seamus Heaney : The Music of What Happens, the first major exhibition to celebrate the life and work of Seamus Heaney since his death. The exhibit holds a display of the surface of Heaney 's personal writing desk that he used in the 1980s as well as old photographs and personal correspondence with other writers. Heaney died in August 2013, during the exhibition 's curatorial process. Though the exhibit 's original vision to celebrate Heaney 's life and work remains at the forefront, there is a small section commemorating his death and its influence. In September 2015, it was announced that Heaney 's family would posthumously publish his translation of Book VI of The Aeneid in 2016. Death Seamus Heaney died in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin on 30 August 2013, aged 74, following a short illness. After a fall outside a restaurant in Dublin, he entered hospital for a medical procedure, but died at 7 : 30 the following morning before it took place. His funeral was held in Donnybrook, Dublin, on the morning of 2 September 2013, and he was buried in the evening at his home village of Bellaghy, in the same graveyard as his parents, young brother, and other family members. His son Michael revealed at the funeral mass that his father texted his final words, `` Noli timere '' ( Latin : `` Do not be afraid '' ), to his wife, Marie, minutes before he died. The day after his death, a crowd of 81,553 spectators applauded Heaney for three minutes at an All - Ireland Gaelic football semi-final match on 1 September. His funeral was broadcast live the following day on RTÉ television and radio and was streamed internationally at RTÉ 's website. RTÉ Radio 1 Extra transmitted a continuous broadcast, from 8 a.m. to 9 : 15 p.m. on the day of the funeral, of his Collected Poems album, recorded by Heaney in 2009. His poetry collections sold out rapidly in Irish bookshops immediately following his death. Many tributes were paid to Heaney. President Michael D. Higgins said :... we in Ireland will once again get a sense of the depth and range of the contribution of Seamus Heaney to our contemporary world, but what those of us who have had the privilege of his friendship and presence will miss is the extraordinary depth and warmth of his personality... Generations of Irish people will have been familiar with Seamus ' poems. Scholars all over the world will have gained from the depth of the critical essays, and so many rights organisations will want to thank him for all the solidarity he gave to the struggles within the republic of conscience. President Higgins also appeared live from Áras an Uachtaráin on the Nine O'Clock News in a five - minute segment in which he paid tribute to Seamus Heaney. Bill Clinton, former President of the United States, said : Both his stunning work and his life were a gift to the world. His mind, heart, and his uniquely Irish gift for language made him our finest poet of the rhythms of ordinary lives and a powerful voice for peace... His wonderful work, like that of his fellow Irish Nobel Prize winners Shaw, Yeats, and Beckett, will be a lasting gift for all the world. José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, said : I am greatly saddened today to learn of the death of Seamus Heaney, one of the great European poets of our lifetime... The strength, beauty and character of his words will endure for generations to come and were rightly recognised with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Harvard University issued a statement : `` We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family. For us, as for people around the world, he epitomised the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace. We will remember him with deep affection and admiration. '' Poet Michael Longley, a close friend of Heaney, said : `` I feel like I 've lost a brother. '' Thomas Kinsella said he was shocked, but John Montague said he had known for some time that the poet was not well. Playwright Frank McGuinness called Heaney `` the greatest Irishman of my generation : he had no rivals. '' Colm Tóibín wrote : `` In a time of burnings and bombings Heaney used poetry to offer an alternative world. '' Gerald Dawe said he was `` like an older brother who encouraged you to do the best you could do ''. Theo Dorgan said, `` ( Heaney 's ) work will pass into permanence. '' Everywhere I go there is real shock at this. Seamus was one of us. '' His publisher, Faber and Faber, noted that `` his impact on literary culture is immeasurable. '' Playwright Tom Stoppard said, `` Seamus never had a sour moment, neither in person nor on paper ''. Andrew Motion, a former UK Poet Laureate and friend of Heaney, called him `` a great poet, a wonderful writer about poetry, and a person of truly exceptional grace and intelligence. '' Many memorial events were held, including a commemoration at Emory University, Harvard University, Oxford University and the Southbank Centre, London. Leading US poetry organisations also met in New York to commemorate the death. Work From `` Joy Or Night '' : In order that human beings bring about the most radiant conditions for themselves to inhabit, it is essential that the vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place. The poet who would be most the poet has to attempt an act of writing that outstrips the conditions even as it observes them. -- from `` Joy Or Night : Last Things in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats and Philip Larkin '', W.D. Thomas Memorial Lecture delivered by Seamus Heaney at University College of Swansea on 18 January 1993. Naturalism According to the BBC, at one time, Heaney 's books made up two - thirds of the sales of living poets in the UK. His work often deals with the local surroundings of Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland, where he was born and lived until young adulthood. Speaking of his early life and education, he commented, `` I learned that my local County Derry experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to ' the modern world ', was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it. '' Death of a Naturalist ( 1966 ) and Door into the Dark ( 1969 ) mostly focus on the details of rural, parochial life. In a number of volumes, beginning with Door into the Dark ( 1969 ) and Wintering Out ( 1972 ), Heaney also spent a significant amount of time writing on the northern Irish bog. Particularly of note is the collection of bog body poems in North ( 1975 ), featuring mangled bodies preserved in the bog. In a review by Ciaran Carson, he said that the bog poems made Heaney into `` the laureate of violence -- a mythmaker, an anthropologist of ritual killing... the world of megalithic doorways and charming noble barbarity. '' Poems such as `` Bogland '' and `` Bog Queen '' addressed political struggles directly for the first time, as well as maintaining a natural aesthetic. Politics Allusions to sectarian difference, widespread in Northern Ireland through his lifetime, can be found in his poems. His books Wintering Out ( 1973 ) and North ( 1975 ) seek to interweave commentary on the Troubles with a historical context and wider human experience. While some critics accused Heaney of being `` an apologist and a mythologiser '' of the violence, Blake Morrison suggests the poet has written poems directly about the Troubles as well as elegies for friends and acquaintances who have died in them ; he has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest ; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance... Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however `` committed '', can influence the course of history. Shaun O'Connell in the New Boston Review notes that `` those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so, though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright. '' O'Connell notes in his Boston Review critique of Station Island : Again and again Heaney pulls back from political purposes ; despite its emblems of savagery, Station Island lends no rhetorical comfort to Republicanism. Politic about politics, Station Island is less about a united Ireland than about a poet seeking religious and aesthetic unity. Heaney is described by critic Terry Eagleton as `` an enlightened cosmopolitan liberal '', refusing to be drawn. Eagleton suggests : `` When the political is introduced... it is only in the context of what Heaney will or will not say. '' Reflections on what Heaney identifies as `` tribal conflict '' favour the description of people 's lives and their voices, drawing out the `` psychic landscape ''. His collections often recall the assassinations of his family members and close friends, lynchings and bombings. Colm Tóibín wrote, `` throughout his career there have been poems of simple evocation and description. His refusal to sum up or offer meaning is part of his tact. '' Heaney published `` Requiem for the Croppies '', a poem that commemorates the Irish rebels of 1798, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. He read the poem to both Catholic and Protestant audiences in Ireland. He commented, `` To read ' Requiem for the Croppies ' was n't to say ' up the IRA ' or anything. It was silence - breaking rather than rabble - rousing. '' He stated, `` You do n't have to love it. You just have to permit it. '' He turned down the offer of laureateship of the United Kingdom, partly for political reasons, commenting, `` I 've nothing against the Queen personally : I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time. '' He stated that his `` cultural starting point '' was `` off - centre ''. A much - quoted statement was when he objected to being included in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry ( 1982 ). Although he was born in Northern Ireland, his response to being included in the British anthology was delivered in his poem `` An Open Letter '' : Do n't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised My passport 's green. No glass of ours was ever raised To toast The Queen. Translation He was concerned, as a poet and a translator, with the English language as it is spoken in Ireland but also as spoken elsewhere and in other times ; he explored Anglo - Saxon influences in his work and study. Critic W.S. Di Piero noted Whatever the occasion, childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present, Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom. Heaney 's first translation was of the Irish lyric poem Buile Suibhne, published as Sweeney Astray : A Version from the Irish ( 1984 ). He took up this character and connection in poems published in Station Island ( 1984 ). Heaney 's prize - winning translation of Beowulf ( Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000, Whitbread Book of the Year Award ) was considered groundbreaking in its use of modern language melded with the original Anglo - Saxon `` music ''. Plays and Prose His plays include The Cure at Troy : A Version of Sophocles ' Philoctetes ( 1991 ). Heaney 's 2004 play, The Burial at Thebes, suggests parallels between Creon and the foreign policies of the Bush administration. Heaney 's engagement with poetry as a necessary engine for cultural and personal change is reflected in his prose works The Redress of Poetry ( 1995 ) and Finders Keepers : Selected Prose, 1971 -- 2001 ( 2002 ). `` When a poem rhymes, '' Heaney wrote, `` when a form generates itself, when a metre provokes consciousness into new postures, it is already on the side of life. When a rhyme surprises and extends the fixed relations between words, that in itself protests against necessity. When language does more than enough, as it does in all achieved poetry, it opts for the condition of overlife, and rebels at limit. '' He continues : `` The vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place ''. Often overlooked and underestimated in the direction of his work is his profound poetic debts to and critical engagement with 20th - century Eastern European poets, and in particular Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. Use in School syllabuses Heaney 's work is used extensively on school syllabuses internationally, including the anthologies The Rattle Bag ( 1982 ) and The School Bag ( 1997 ) ( both edited with Ted Hughes ). Originally entitled The Faber Book of Verse for Younger People on the Faber contract, Hughes and Heaney decided the main purpose of The Rattle Bag was to offer enjoyment to the reader : `` Arbitrary riches. '' Heaney commented `` the book in our heads was something closer to The Fancy Free Poetry Supplement. '' It included work that they would have liked to encountered sooner in their own lives, as well as nonsense rhymes, ballad - type poems, riddles, folk songs and rhythmical jingles. Much familiar canonical work was not included, since they took it for granted that their audience would know the standard fare. Fifteen years later, The School Bag aimed at something different. The foreword stated that they wanted `` less of a carnival, more like a checklist. '' It included poems in English, Irish, Welsh, Scots and Scots Gaelic, together with work reflecting the African - American experience. Two of his poems entitled ' Storm on the Island ' and ' Follower ' feature on the new GCSE English Literature course as part of the anthology poetry cluster. Legacy The Seamus Heaney HomePlace is a literary and arts center which commemorates the legacy of Seamus Heaney. It is located in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Publications Poetry : main collections 1966 : Death of a Naturalist, Faber & Faber 1969 : Door into the Dark, Faber & Faber 1972 : Wintering Out, Faber & Faber 1975 : North, Faber & Faber 1979 : Field Work, Faber & Faber 1984 : Station Island, Faber & Faber 1987 : The Haw Lantern, Faber & Faber 1991 : Seeing Things, Faber & Faber 1996 : The Spirit Level, Faber & Faber 2001 : Electric Light, Faber & Faber 2006 : District and Circle, Faber & Faber 2010 : Human Chain, Faber & Faber Poetry : selected editions 1980 : Selected Poems 1965 -- 1975, Faber & Faber 1990 : New Selected Poems 1966 -- 1987, Faber & Faber 1998 : Opened Ground : Poems 1966 -- 1996, Faber & Faber 2014 : New Selected Poems 1988 -- 2013, Faber & Faber 2018 : 100 Poems, Faber & Faber Prose : main collections 1980 : Preoccupations : Selected Prose 1968 -- 1978, Faber & Faber 1988 : The Government of the Tongue, Faber & Faber 1995 : The Redress of Poetry : Oxford Lectures, Faber & Faber Prose : selected editions 2002 : Finders Keepers : Selected Prose 1971 -- 2001, Faber & Faber Plays 1990 : The Cure at Troy : A version of Sophocles ' Philoctetes, Field Day 2004 : The Burial at Thebes : A version of Sophocles ' Antigone, Faber & Faber Translations 1983 : Sweeney Astray : A version from the Irish, Field Day 1992 : Sweeney 's Flight ( with Rachel Giese, photographer ), Faber & Faber 1993 : The Midnight Verdict : Translations from the Irish of Brian Merriman and from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, Gallery Press 1995 : Laments, a cycle of Polish Renaissance elegies by Jan Kochanowski, translated with Stanisław Barańczak, Faber & Faber 1999 : Beowulf, Faber & Faber 1999 : Diary of One Who Vanished, a song cycle by Leoš Janáček of poems by Ozef Kalda, Faber & Faber 2009 : The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables, Faber & Faber 2016 : `` Aeneid : Book VI '', Faber & Faber Limited editions and booklets ( poetry, prose, and translatons ) 1965 : Eleven Poems, Queen 's University 1968 : The Island People, BBC 1968 : Room to Rhyme, Arts Council N.I. 1969 : A Lough Neagh Sequence, Phoenix 1970 : Night Drive, Gilbertson 1970 : A Boy Driving His Father to Confession, Sceptre Press 1973 : Explorations, BBC 1975 : Stations, Ulsterman Publications 1975 : Bog Poems, Rainbow Press 1975 : The Fire i ' the Flint, Oxford University Press 1976 : Four Poems, Crannog Press 1977 : Glanmore Sonnets, Editions Monika Beck 1977 : In Their Element, Arts Council N.I. 1978 : Robert Lowell : A Memorial Address and an Elegy, Faber & Faber 1978 : The Makings of a Music, University of Liverpool 1978 : After Summer, Gallery Press 1979 : Hedge School, Janus Press 1979 : Ugolino, Carpenter Press 1979 : Gravities, Charlotte Press 1979 : A Family Album, Byron Press 1980 : Toome, National College of Art and Design 1981 : Sweeney Praises the Trees, Henry Pearson 1982 : A Personal Selection, Ulster Museum 1982 : Poems and a Memoir, Limited Editions Club 1983 : An Open Letter, Field Day 1983 : Among Schoolchildren, Queen 's University 1984 : Verses for a Fordham Commencement, Nadja Press 1984 : Hailstones, Gallery Press 1985 : From the Republic of Conscience, Amnesty International 1985 : Place and Displacement, Dove Cottage 1985 : Towards a Collaboration, Arts Council N.I. 1986 : Clearances, Cornamona Press 1988 : Readings in Contemporary Poetry, DIA Art Foundation 1988 : The Sounds of Rain, Emory University 1988 : The Dark Wood, Colin Smythe 1989 : An Upstairs Outlook, Linen Hall Library 1989 : The Place of Writing, Emory University 1990 : The Tree Clock, Linen Hall Library 1991 : Squarings, Hieroglyph Editions 1992 : Dylan the Durable, Bennington College 1992 : The Gravel Walks, Lenoir Rhyne College 1992 : The Golden Bough, Bonnefant Press 1993 : Keeping Going, Bow and Arrow Press 1993 : Joy or Night, University of Swansea 1994 : Extending the Alphabet, Memorial University of Newfoundland 1994 : Speranza in Reading, University of Tasmania 1995 : Oscar Wilde Dedication, Westminster Abbey 1995 : Charles Montgomery Monteith, All Souls College 1995 : Crediting Poetry : The Nobel Lecture, Gallery Press 1996 : Commencement Address, UNC Chapel Hill 1997 : Poet to Blacksmith, Pim Witteveen 1997 : An After Dinner Speech, Atlantic Foundation 1998 : Audenesque, Maeght 1999 : The Light of the Leaves, Bonnefant Press 1999 : Ballynahinch Lake, Sonzogni 2001 : Something to Write Home About, Flying Fox 2001 : Towers, Trees, Terrors, Università degli Studi di Urbino 2002 : The Whole Thing : on the Good of Poetry, The Recorder 2002 : Hope and History, Rhodes University 2002 : A Keen for the Coins, Lenoir Rhyne College 2002 : Hallaig, Sorley MacLean Trust 2002 : Arion, a poem by Alexander Pushkin, translated from the Russian, with a note by Olga Carlisle, Arion Press 2003 : Eclogues in Extremis, Royal Irish Academy 2003 : Squarings, Arion Press 2004 : Anything can Happen, Town House Publishers 2004 : Room to Rhyme, University of Dundee 2004 : The Testament of Cresseid, Enitharmon Press 2004 : Columcille The Scribe, The Royal Irish Academy 2005 : A Tribute to Michael McLaverty, Linen Hall Library 2005 : The Door Stands Open, Irish Writers Centre 2005 : A Shiver, Clutag Press 2007 : The Riverbank Field, Gallery Press 2008 : Articulations, Royal Irish Academy 2008 : One on a Side, Robert Frost Foundation 2009 : Spelling It Out, Gallery Press 2010 : Writer & Righter, Irish Human Rights Commission 2012 : Stone From Delphi, Arion Press 2013 : The Last Walk, Gallery Press Critical Studies of Heaney 1993 : The Poetry of Seamus Heaney, ed. by Elmer Andrews, ISBN 0 - 231 - 11926 - 7 1993 : Seamus Heaney : The Making of the Poet by Michael Parker, ISBN 0 - 333 - 47181 - 4 1995 : The Achievement of Seamus Heaney by John Wilson Foster, Lilliput Press, Dublin, ISBN 1 - 874675 - 71 - 6 1995 : Critical essays on Seamus Heaney, ed. by Robert F. Garratt, ISBN 0 - 7838 - 0004 - 5 1998 : The Poetry of Seamus Heaney : A Critical Study by Neil Corcoran, ISBN 0 - 571 - 17747 - 6 2000 : Seamus Heaney by Helen Vendler, ISBN 0 - 674 - 00205 - 9, Harvard University Press 2000 : The Poetry of Seamus Heaney, ed. by Elmer Kennedy - Andrews, Icon Books Ltd., Cambridge CB2 4QF UK ISBN 1 - 84046 - 137 - 3 2002 : The Bottomless Centre. The Uses of History in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney, by Jerzy Jarniewicz ISBN 83 - 7171 - 603 - 6 2003 : Seamus Heaney and the Place of Writing by Eugene O'Brien, University Press of Florida, ISBN 0 - 8130 - 2582 - 6 2004 : Seamus Heaney Searches for Answers by Eugene O'Brien, Pluto Press, London, ISBN 0 - 7453 - 1734 - 0 2007 `` Seamus Heaney : Poet, Critic, Translator '' edited by Ashby Bland Crowder and Jason David Hall, Palgrave Macmillan, Basinnstoke ISBN 978 - 0 - 230 - 00342 - 2 2007 : Seamus Heaney and the Emblems of Hope by Karen Marguerite Moloney, ISBN 978 - 0 - 8262 - 1744 - 8 2007 : Seamus Heaney : Creating Irelands of the Mind by Eugene O'Brien, Liffey Press, Dublin, ISBN 1 - 904148 - 02 - 6 2008 `` Seamus Heaney 's Rhythmic Contract '' by Jason David Hall, Palgrave Macmillan, Basinenstoke ISBN 978 - 0 - 230 - 57488 - 5 2009 : The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney, edited by Bernard O'Donoghue, ISBN 0 - 5215 - 4755 - 5 2010 : Poetry and Peace : Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, and Northern Ireland by Richard Rankin Russell, ISBN 978 - 0 - 268 - 04031 - 4 2010 : Defending Poetry : Art and Ethics in Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill by David - Antoine Williams 2010 : `` Working Nation ( s ) : Seamus Heaney 's ' Digging ' and the Work Ethic in Post-Colonial and Minority Writing '', by Ivan Cañadas 2011 : `` Seamus Heaney and Beowulf, '' by M.J. Toswell, in : Cahier Calin : Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin, ed. by Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery ( Kalamazoo, MI : Studies in Medievalism, 2011 ), pp. 18 -- 22. 2012 : In Gratitude for all the Gifts : Seamus Heaney and Eastern Europe, by Magdalena Kay, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 9781442644984 2016 : `` Seamus Heaney as Aesthetic Thinker : A Study of the Prose '', by Eugene O'Brien. New York ; Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8156 - 3460 - 7. 2016 : `` ' The Soul Exceeds its Circumstances ' : The Later Poetry of Seamus Heaney '', edited by Eugene O'Brien. Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 268 - 10020 - 9 Selected discography 2001 Beowulf -- Seamus Heaney 2003 The Poet & The Piper -- Seamus Heaney & Liam O'Flynn 2009 Collected Poems -- Recording of Heaney reading all of his collected poems Heaney translated Old Irish marginalia for Songs of the Scribe by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, Traditional Singer in Residence at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen 's University Belfast. Major prizes and honours 1966 Eric Gregory Award 1967 Cholmondeley Award 1968 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 1975 E.M. Forster Award 1975 Duff Cooper Memorial Prize 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature 1996 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 1997 Elected Saoi of Aosdána 1998 St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates 2001 Golden Wreath of Poetry, the main international award given by Struga Poetry Evenings to a world - renowned living poet for life achievement in the field of poetry 2004 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement 2005 Irish PEN Award 2006 T.S. Eliot Prize for District and Circle 2007 Poetry Now Award for District and Circle 2009 David Cohen Prize 2011 Poetry Now Award for Human Chain 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize finalist for Human Chain 2011 Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize, Lifetime Recognition Award See also Poetry portal List of Nobel laureates in Literature List of people on stamps of Ireland References ^ Jump up to : Obituary : Heaney ' the most important Irish poet since Yeats ', Irish Times, 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Seamus Heaney obituary, The Guardian, 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : `` Biography of Irish Writer Seamus Heaney ''. www.seamusheaney.org. Archived from the original on 24 February 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2010. Heaney was born on 13th April 1939, the eldest of nine children at the family farm called Mossbawn in the Townland of Tamniarn in Newbridge near Castledawson, Northern Ireland,... Archived at Wayback Engine. Jump up ^ Heaney, Seamus ( 1998 ). Opened Ground. New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0 - 374 - 52678 - 8. ^ Jump up to : `` Faces of the week ''. BBC News. BBC. 19 January 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2010. ^ Jump up to : Sutherland, John ( 19 March 2009 ). `` Seamus Heaney deserves a lot more than £ 40,000 ''. The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 19 April 2010. Jump up ^ Pinsky, Robert. The Eco Press, Hopewell ISBN 088001217X Jump up ^ Craig, Patricia ( 30 August 2013 ). `` Seamus Heaney obituary : Nobel Prize - winning Irish Poet ''. The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Retrieved 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Parker, Michael ( 1993 ). Seamus Heaney : The Making of the Poet. Iowa City : University of Iowa Press. p. 221. ISBN 0 - 87745 - 398 - 5. The deaths of his mother in the autumn of 1984 and of his father in October 1986 left a colossal space, one which he has struggled to fill through poetry. Jump up ^ `` A Note on Seamus Heaney ''. inform.orbitaltec.ne. Retrieved 20 April 2009. Seamus Heaney was born on 13 April 1939, the first child of Patrick and Margaret Kathleen ( née McCann ) Heaney, who then lived on a fifty - acre farm called Mossbawn, in the townland of Tamniarn, County Derry, Northern Ireland. Jump up ^ `` Biography ''. Nobelprize. Retrieved 23 May 2010. Jump up ^ Verdonk, Peter ( 2002 ). Stylistics. Oxford : Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 0 - 19 - 437240 - 5. Jump up ^ Parker, Michael ( 1993 ). Seamus Heaney : The Making of the Poet. Iowa City : University of Iowa Press. p. 3. ISBN 0 - 87745 - 398 - 5. Mrs Heaney bore nine children, Seamus, Sheena, Ann, Hugh, Patrick, Charles, Colum, Christopher, and Dan. ^ Jump up to : McCrum, Robert ( 19 July 2009 ). `` A life of rhyme ''. Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 19 July 2009. Jump up ^ `` Heaney, Seamus : Mid-Term Break ''. Litmed.med.nyu.edu. 27 October 1999. Retrieved 20 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Biography ''. British Council. Archived from the original on 9 October 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2010. ^ Jump up to : Ed. Bernard O'Donoghue The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney ( 2009 ) Cambridge University Press pxiii ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 54755 - 0. Retrieved 23 May 2010. Jump up ^ Sophia Hillan, New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 9, No. 3 ( Autumn, 2005 ), pp. 86 -- 106. `` Wintered into Wisdom : Michael McLaverty, Seamus Heaney, and the Northern Word - Hoard ''. University of St. Thomas ( Center for Irish Studies ) Jump up ^ McLaverty, Michael ( 2002 ) Collected Short Stories, Blackstaff Press Ltd, p. xiii, ISBN 0 - 85640 - 727 - 5. Jump up ^ `` Biography ''. Aosdána. Jump up ^ Blog, News ( 30 August 2013 ). `` Fordham Notes : Seamus Heaney 's `` Verses for a Fordham Commencement '' ``. Fordham Notes. Retrieved 2016 - 11 - 03. Jump up ^ `` Irish Nobel Prize Poet Seamus Heaney Dies Aged 74 - VIDEO ''. Ibtimes.co.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney, `` Heaney in Public '' by Dennis O'Driscoll ( p56 - 72 ). ISBN 0 - 5215 - 4755 - 5. Jump up ^ `` Barclay Agency profile ''. Barclayagency.com. Archived from the original on 8 May 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ British Council biography of Heaney. Retrieved 19 April 2010. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney, Poet ''. Frontline Defenders. Retrieved 30 November 2014. Jump up ^ `` From the Republic of Conscience ''. Amnesty International. Retrieved 30 November 2014. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney Exhibit '', Emory University, January 2014 Jump up ^ `` Heaney ' catches the heart off guard ' ''. Harvard News Office. Harvard University. 2 October 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2010. Over the years, readings by poet Seamus Heaney have been so wildly popular that his fans are called `` Heaneyboppers. '' Jump up ^ `` Play Listing ''. Irish Playography. Irish Theatre Institute. Retrieved 24 August 2007. Jump up ^ `` Royal Society of Literature All Fellows ''. Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010. Jump up ^ `` The Nobel Prize in Literature 1995 ''. Nobelprize. 7 October 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2010. ^ Jump up to : Clarity, James F. ( 9 October 1995 ). `` Laureate and Symbol, Heaney Returns Home ''. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Jump up ^ `` Beowulf : A New Translation ''. Rambles.net. Retrieved 20 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney MRIA 1939 - 2013 - A Very Special Academician ''. ria.ie. 30 August 2013. Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney ''. aosdána.artscouncil.ie. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 8 September 2013. Jump up ^ University of Pennsylvania. Honorary Degree awarded. Retrieved 19 September 2010. Jump up ^ `` Rhodes Department of English Annual Report 2002 - 2003 '' ( PDF ). Archived from the original on 14 April 2008. Retrieved 2007 - 10 - 18. CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown ( link ) from the Rhodes University website. Jump up ^ The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen 's University Belfast website Jump up ^ `` Emory Acquires Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney Letters ''. press release. Emory University. 24 September 2003. When I was here this summer for commencement, I came to the decision that the conclusion of President Chace 's tenure was the moment of truth, and that I should now lodge a substantial portion of my literary archive in the Woodruff Library, including the correspondence from many of the poets already represented in its special collections, '' said Heaney in making the announcement. `` So I am pleased to say these letters are now here and that even though President Chace is departing, as long as my papers stay here, they will be a memorial to the work he has done to extend the university 's resources and strengthen its purpose. Jump up ^ `` Poet Heaney donates papers to Emory ''. The Augusta Chronicle. 25 September 2003. Retrieved 25 September 2003. Jump up ^ Emory University. Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Book Library ( MARBL ) Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine... Online collection of The Belfast Group archive. Jump up ^ Eminem, The Way I Am, autobiography, cover sheet. Published 21 October 2008. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney praises Eminem ''. BBC News. BBC. 30 June 2003. Retrieved 9 April 2010. ^ Jump up to : `` Heaney bid farewell at funeral '', Belfast Telegraph, 2 September 2013. Jump up ^ Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 16 January 2007. Jump up ^ `` Poet ' cried for father ' after stroke ''. BBC News. BBC. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 20 July 2009. Jump up ^ Kelly, Antoinette ( 19 July 2009 ). `` Nobel winner Seamus Heaney recalls secret visit from Bill Clinton : President visit to Heaney 's hospital bed after near - fatal stroke ''. Irish Central. Retrieved 19 July 2009. Jump up ^ `` Heaney wins TS Eliot poetry prize ''. BBC News. BBC. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2007. Jump up ^ `` Announcement of Awards ''. University College Dublin. Jump up ^ `` Stepping Stones : Interviews with Seamus Heaney ''. The Times. 14 November 2008. Retrieved 23 May 2010. Jump up ^ `` Féile an Phobail, Festival of the People, 2010 programme ''. Official website. Archived from the original on 23 August 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2010. Archived at Wayback Engine. ^ Jump up to : Page, Benedicte ( 6 October 2010 ). `` Seamus Heaney wins £ 10k Forward poetry prize for Human Chain ''. The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 6 October 2010. Jump up ^ Kellaway, Kate ( 22 August 2010 ). `` Human Chain by Seamus Heaney ''. The Observer. Retrieved 22 August 2010. ^ Jump up to : Tóibín, Colm ( 21 August 2010 ). `` Human Chain by Seamus Heaney -- review ''. The Guardian. Retrieved 21 August 2010. Jump up ^ Naughton, John ( 8 May 2011 ). `` Britain 's top 300 intellectuals ''. The Observer. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 8 May 2011. Jump up ^ `` Songs of the Scribe Sung by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin ''. Journal of Music. 6 December 2011. Jump up ^ Telford, Lyndsey ( 21 December 2011 ). `` Seamus Heaney declutters home and donates personal notes to National Library ''. Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. Retrieved 21 December 2011. Jump up ^ Madden, Anne ( 22 December 2011 ). `` Seamus Heaney 's papers go to Dublin, but we do n't mind, insists QUB ''. The Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 22 December 2011. Jump up ^ Prize, Griffin Poetry ( 7 June 2012 ). `` 2012 -- Seamus Heaney ''. Griffin Poetry Prize. Retrieved 1 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney : The Music of What Happens ''. Emory Library. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney : The Music of What Happens ''. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` Woodruff Library Welcomes Seamus Heaney Exhibit ''. Jump up ^ Alison Flood. `` New Seamus Heaney translation to be published next year ''. the Guardian. ^ Jump up to : HEANEY, Seamus : Death notice The Irish Times, 30 September 2013. Jump up ^ McGreevy, Ronan ( 30 August 2013 ). `` Tributes paid to ' keeper of language ' Seamus Heaney ''. The Irish Times. Retrieved 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Higgins to lead mourners at funeral Mass for poet Sunday Indeppendent, 1 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney laid to rest in Bellaghy '', Irish Times, 2 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney 's last words were ' Noli timere ', son tells funeral '', The Guardian, 2 September 2013. Jump up ^ Heaney, Mick ( 12 September 2015 ) `` Mick Heaney : My father 's famous last words ; Seamus Heaney 's son writes about his father 's final message to his family : ' Noli timere ' '', The Irish Times. Jump up ^ `` Epic tale goes Dublin 's way '', Irish Times, 2 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Funeral of Seamus Heaney to be broadcast live on RTÉ '', TheJournal.ie, 1 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` Heaney books sell out amid massive demand '', Irish Times, 5 September 2013. Jump up ^ Statement from Áras an Uachtaráin -- Seamus Heaney Archived 25 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Áras an Uachtaráin, 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ President Michael D Higgins pays tribute to his friend Seamus Heaney on YouTube RTÉ News, 31 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Tributes to Seamus Heaney, BBC News Northern Ireland, 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : `` Poet Seamus Heaney dies aged 74 ''. BBC News. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ `` President and Taoiseach lead tributes to the late Seamus Heaney : Tributes paid to the Nobel Laureate who died this morning at the age of 74 ''. Irish Independent. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Higgins, Charlotte ; McDonald, Henry ( 30 August 2013 ). `` Seamus Heaney 's death ' leaves breach in language itself ' : Tributes flow in from fellow writers after poet who won Nobel prize for literature dies in Dublin aged 74 ''. The Guardian. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ Tóibín, Colm ( 30 August 2013 ). `` Seamus Heaney 's books were events in our lives ''. The Guardian. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ `` Heaney deserves place among the pantheon, says Dorgan ''. The Irish Times. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Jump up ^ `` Emory honors literary icon with ' A Tribute to Seamus Heaney ' ''. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` A Tribute To Seamus Heaney ''. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` Seamus Heaney : A Memorial Celebration ''. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` Bodleian Library - SPECIAL EVENT : Oxford Tribute to Seamus Heaney ''. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` Poets Gather to Remember Seamus Heaney in New York City on November 11 at 7 : 00 p.m. '' Retrieved 15 April 2015. ^ Jump up to : `` Biography ''. Poetry Foundation. Jump up ^ O'Donoghue, Bernard ( 2009 ). The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. Jump up ^ O'Connell, Shaun ( 1 February 1985 ). `` Station Island, Seamus Heaney ''. Boston Review. Retrieved 2 October 2010. Jump up ^ `` Terry Eagleton reviews ' Beowulf ' translated by Seamus Heaney LRB 11 November 1999 ''. Lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2013. ^ Jump up to : Potts, Robert ( 7 April 2001 ). `` The view from Olympia ''. The Guardian. Retrieved 7 April 2001. ^ Jump up to : Rahim, Sameer ( 11 May 2009 ). `` Interview with Seamus Heaney : On the eve of his 70th birthday, Seamus Heaney tells Sameer Rahim about his lifetime in poetry -- and who he thinks would make a good poet laureate ''. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 November 2010. Jump up ^ McElroy, Steven ( 21 January 2007 ). `` The Week Ahead : Jan. 21 -- 27 ''. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 21 January 2007. Jump up ^ Kay, Magdalena. In Gratitude for all the Gifts : Seamus Heaney and Eastern Europe. University of Toronto Press, 2012. ISBN 1442644982 ^ Jump up to : Heaney, Seamus ( 25 October 2003 ). `` Bags of enlightenment ''. The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 25 October 2003. Jump up ^ video tribute. Jump up ^ Excerpt : Virgil ( March 7, 2016 ). Translated by Seamus Heaney. `` From `` The Aeneid '' Book VI ``. The New Yorker. 92 ( 4 ) : 27. Jump up ^ Cañadas, Ivan ( 2010 ). `` Working Nation ( s ) : Seamus Heaney 's `` Digging '' and the Work Ethic in Post-Colonial and Minority Writing ``. EESE : Erfurt Electronic Studies in English. Jump up ^ Website of St. Louis Literary Award Jump up ^ Saint Louis University Library Associates. `` Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award ''. Archived from the original on 31 July 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2016. Jump up ^ `` Kenyon Review for Literary Achievement ''. KenyonReview.org. Jump up ^ Newington, Giles ( 16 June 2012 ). `` Heaney wins top Canadian prize ''. The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 16 June 2012. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : Seamus Heaney Wikimedia Commons has media related to Seamus Heaney. Heaney 's Nobel acceptance speech Works by or about Seamus Heaney in libraries ( WorldCat catalog ) Seamus Heaney on IMDb Seamus Heaney at the Poetry Foundation Seamus Heaney at the Poetry Archive Seamus Heaney at the Academy for American Poets Portraits of Heaney at the National Portrait Gallery, London BBC Your Paintings in partnership PCF. Painting by Peter Edwards `` Seamus Heaney collected news and commentary ''. The Guardian. Henri Cole ( Fall 1997 ). `` Seamus Heaney, The Art of Poetry No. 75 ''. The Paris Review. Lannan Foundation reading and conversation with Dennis O'Driscoll, 1 October 2003. ( Audio / video - 40 mins ). Prose transcript. 1998 Whiting Writers ' Award Keynote Speech Seamus Heaney : Man of Words and Grace November -- December 2013. `` History and the homeland '' video from The New Yorker. 15 October 2008. Paul Muldoon, interviews Heaney. ( 1 hr ). Archival material at Leeds University Library Works by Seamus Heaney Poetry Death of a Naturalist Door into the Dark Wintering Out Stations North Field Work Station Island The Haw Lantern Seeing Things The Spirit Level Electric Light District and Circle Human Chain Selections Selected Poems 1965 -- 1975 New Selected Poems 1966 -- 1987 Plays The Cure at Troy The Burial at Thebes Translations Sweeney Astray : A version from the Irish Laments Beowulf The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables Recordings The Poet and The Piper Collected Poems Beowulf Characters Beowulf Grendel Grendel 's mother Hroðgar Ecgþeow Hygelac Heardred Æschere Onela Wealhþeow Wiglaf Unferð Hygd The Dragon List of Beowulf characters Scholars and translators Michael J. Alexander Nora K. Chadwick P.J. Cosijn Kevin Crossley - Holland Michael D.C. Drout Francis Barton Gummere Seamus Heaney Roy Liuzza William Morris Frederick Klaeber Laurence Nowell Burton Raffel Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin J.R.R. Tolkien Beowulf : A Translation and Commentary `` Beowulf : The Monsters and the Critics '' Beowulf and the Critics `` On Translating Beowulf '' `` Sellic Spell '' Finn and Hengest Charles Leslie Wrenn Depictions Books Grendel Eaters of the Dead Film Grendel Grendel Grendel Beowulf ( 1999 ) The 13th Warrior No Such Thing Outlander Beowulf & Grendel ( Wrath of Gods ) Grendel Beowulf ( 2007 ) Beowulf : Prince of the Geats Beowulf : Return to the Shieldlands See also Anglo - Saxon paganism Battle of Finnsburg Heorot Hrunting Nægling Nowell Codex Irish poetry Topics Irish poetry Chief Ollam of Ireland Irish bardic poetry Irish Literary Revival Metrical Dindshenchas Contention of the bards Aisling Weaver Poets An Gúm Kildare Poems Táin Bó Cúailnge Poets Bardic Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin Muircheartach Ó Cobhthaigh Gilla Mo Dutu Úa Caiside Baothghalach Mór Mac Aodhagáin Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh Flann mac Lonáin Donnchadh Mór Ó Dálaigh Lochlann Óg Ó Dálaigh Fear Flaith Ó Gnímh Mathghamhain Ó hIfearnáin Cormac Mac Con Midhe Eoghan Carrach Ó Siadhail Fear Feasa Ó'n Cháinte Tadhg Olltach Ó an Cháinte Eochaidh Ó hÉoghusa Proinsias Ó Doibhlin Tarlach Rua Mac Dónaill Gilla Cómáin mac Gilla Samthainde Tadhg Dall Ó hÚigínn Niníne Éces Colmán of Cloyne Cináed ua hArtacáin Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh Cearbhall Óg Ó Dálaigh Máeleoin Bódur Ó Maolconaire Diarmaid Mac an Bhaird Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh Dallán Forgaill Óengus of Tallaght Sedulius Scottus Saint Dungal Maol Sheachluinn na n - Uirsgéal Ó hÚigínn Philip Ó Duibhgeannain 15th / 16th century Tomás Ó Cobhthaigh 17th century Dáibhí Ó Bruadair Piaras Feiritéar Aogán Ó Rathaille 18th century Aogán Ó Rathaille Brian Merriman Jonathan Swift Oliver Goldsmith John Hewitt 19th century Thomas Moore Charles Gavan Duffy James Clarence Mangan Samuel Ferguson William Allingham Douglas Hyde James Henry Antoine Ó Raifteiri Aeneas Coffey Robert Dwyer Joyce Thomas Davis Speranza Katharine Tynan Oscar Wilde 20th century James Joyce Patrick Pearse Joseph Plunkett Thomas MacDonagh Francis Ledwidge Padraic Colum F.R. Higgins Austin Clarke Samuel Beckett Brian Coffey Denis Devlin Thomas MacGreevy Blanaid Salkeld Mary Devenport O'Neill Patrick Kavanagh John Hewitt Louis MacNeice Máirtín Ó Direáin Seán Ó Ríordáin Máire Mhac an tSaoi Michael Hartnett Gabriel Rosenstock Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Micheál Mac Liammóir Robert Greacen Roy McFadden Padraic Fiacc John Montague Michael Longley Derek Mahon Seamus Heaney Paul Muldoon Thomas Kinsella Michael Smith Trevor Joyce Geoffrey Squires Augustus Young Randolph Healy John Jordan Paul Durcan Basil Payne Eoghan Ó Tuairisc Patrick Galvin Cathal Ó Searcaigh Bobby Sands Rita Ann Higgins Eavan Boland Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin Medbh McGuckian Paula Meehan Dennis O'Driscoll Seán Dunne Anthony Cronin W.F. Marshall W.B. Yeats 21st century Thomas McCarthy John Ennis Pat Boran Mairéad Byrne Ciarán Carson Patrick Chapman Harry Clifton Tony Curtis Pádraig J. Daly Gerald Dawe Greg Delanty Eamon Grennan Vona Groarke Seamus Heaney Pat Ingoldsby Brendan Kennelly Hugh McFadden Sinéad Morrissey Gerry Murphy Bernard O'Donoghue Conor O'Callaghan Caitriona O'Reilly Justin Quinn Maurice Riordan Maurice Scully William Wall Catherine Walsh Poems Anthologies Faber Book of Irish Verse Epics The Wanderings of Oisin Bardic Timna Cathaír Máir Caithréim Cellaig Le dís cuirthear clú Laighean Is acher in gaíth in - nocht... Is trúag in ces i mbiam Sen dollotar Ulaid... Sorrow is the worst thing in life... An Díbirt go Connachta Foraire Uladh ar Aodh A aonmhic Dé do céasadh thrínn A theachtaire tig ón Róimh An sluagh sidhe so i nEamhuin ? Cóir Connacht ar chath Laighean Dia libh a laochruidh Gaoidhiol Pangur Bán Liamuin Buile Shuibhne The Prophecy of Berchán Bean Torrach, fa Tuar Broide 18th century The Traveller Suantraí dá Mhac Tabhartha Mná na hÉireann 19th century Tone 's Grave The Wind That Shakes the Barley Contemporary Love Songs of Connacht Hi Uncle Sam Meeting The British Horse Latitudes Sweeney Astray Prayer Before Birth D - Day Organizations Poetry Ireland Publications Poetry Ireland Review The Lace Curtain Events SoundEye Festival Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1901 -- 1925 1901 Sully Prudhomme 1902 Theodor Mommsen 1903 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1904 Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray 1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz 1906 Giosuè Carducci 1907 Rudyard Kipling 1908 Rudolf Eucken 1909 Selma Lagerlöf 1910 Paul Heyse 1911 Maurice Maeterlinck 1912 Gerhart Hauptmann 1913 Rabindranath Tagore 1914 1915 Romain Rolland 1916 Verner von Heidenstam 1917 Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan 1918 1919 Carl Spitteler 1920 Knut Hamsun 1921 Anatole France 1922 Jacinto Benavente 1923 W.B. Yeats 1924 Władysław Reymont 1925 George Bernard Shaw 1926 -- 1950 1926 Grazia Deledda 1927 Henri Bergson 1928 Sigrid Undset 1929 Thomas Mann 1930 Sinclair Lewis 1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt 1932 John Galsworthy 1933 Ivan Bunin 1934 Luigi Pirandello 1935 1936 Eugene O'Neill 1937 Roger Martin du Gard 1938 Pearl S. Buck 1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpää 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 Johannes V. Jensen 1945 Gabriela Mistral 1946 Hermann Hesse 1947 André Gide 1948 T.S. Eliot 1949 William Faulkner 1950 Bertrand Russell 1951 -- 1975 1951 Pär Lagerkvist 1952 François Mauriac 1953 Winston Churchill 1954 Ernest Hemingway 1955 Halldór Laxness 1956 Juan Ramón Jiménez 1957 Albert Camus 1958 Boris Pasternak 1959 Salvatore Quasimodo 1960 Saint - John Perse 1961 Ivo Andrić 1962 John Steinbeck 1963 Giorgos Seferis 1964 Jean - Paul Sartre ( declined award ) 1965 Mikhail Sholokhov 1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs 1967 Miguel Ángel Asturias 1968 Yasunari Kawabata 1969 Samuel Beckett 1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1971 Pablo Neruda 1972 Heinrich Böll 1973 Patrick White 1974 Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson 1975 Eugenio Montale 1976 -- 2000 1976 Saul Bellow 1977 Vicente Aleixandre 1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer 1979 Odysseas Elytis 1980 Czesław Miłosz 1981 Elias Canetti 1982 Gabriel García Márquez 1983 William Golding 1984 Jaroslav Seifert 1985 Claude Simon 1986 Wole Soyinka 1987 Joseph Brodsky 1988 Naguib Mahfouz 1989 Camilo José Cela 1990 Octavio Paz 1991 Nadine Gordimer 1992 Derek Walcott 1993 Toni Morrison 1994 Kenzaburō Ōe 1995 Seamus Heaney 1996 Wisława Szymborska 1997 Dario Fo 1998 José Saramago 1999 Günter Grass 2000 Gao Xingjian 2001 -- present 2001 V.S. Naipaul 2002 Imre Kertész 2003 J.M. Coetzee 2004 Elfriede Jelinek 2005 Harold Pinter 2006 Orhan Pamuk 2007 Doris Lessing 2008 J.M.G. Le Clézio 2009 Herta Müller 2010 Mario Vargas Llosa 2011 Tomas Tranströmer 2012 Mo Yan 2013 Alice Munro 2014 Patrick Modiano 2015 Svetlana Alexievich 2016 Bob Dylan 2017 Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 Nobel Prize laureates Chemistry Paul J. Crutzen ( Netherlands ) Mario J. Molina ( Mexico ) F. Sherwood Rowland ( United States ) Literature Seamus Heaney ( Ireland ) Peace Joseph Rotblat ( United Kingdom / Poland ) Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs ( Canada ) Physics Martin Lewis Perl ( United States ) Frederick Reines ( United States ) Physiology or Medicine Edward B. Lewis ( United States ) Christiane Nüsslein - Volhard ( Germany ) Eric F. Wieschaus ( United States ) Economic Sciences Robert Lucas, Jr. ( United States ) Nobel Prize recipients 1990 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Awards received by Seamus Heaney Recipients of the Mondello Prize Single Prize for Literature : Bartolo Cattafi ( 1975 ) Achille Campanile ( 1976 ) Günter Grass ( 1977 ) Special Jury Prize : Denise McSmith ( 1975 ) Stefano D'Arrigo ( 1977 ) Jurij Trifonov ( 1978 ) Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz ( 1979 ) Pietro Consagra ( 1980 ) Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino ( 1983 ) Leonardo Sciascia ( 1985 ) Wang Meng ( 1987 ) Mikhail Gorbaciov ( 1988 ) Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu ( 1990 ) Fernanda Pivano ( 1992 ) Associazione Scrittori Cinesi ( 1993 ) Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin ( 1995 ) Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung ( 1996 ) Khushwant Singh ( 1997 ) Javier Marías ( 1998 ) Francesco Burdin ( 2001 ) Luciano Erba ( 2002 ) Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo ( 2003 ) Marina Rullo ( 2006 ) Andrea Ceccherini ( 2007 ) Enrique Vila - Matas ( 2009 ) Francesco Forgione ( 2010 ) First narrative work : Carmelo Samonà ( 1978 ) Fausta Garavini ( 1979 ) First poetic work : Giovanni Giuga ( 1978 ) Gilberto Sacerdoti ( 1979 ) Prize for foreign literature : Milan Kundera ( 1978 ) N. Scott Momaday ( 1979 ) Juan Carlos Onetti ( 1980 ) Tadeusz Konwicki ( 1981 ) Prize for foreign poetry : Jannis Ritsos ( 1978 ) Josif Brodskij ( 1979 ) Juan Gelman ( 1980 ) Gyula Illyés ( 1981 ) First work : Valerio Magrelli ( 1980 ) Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli ( 1981 ) Jolanda Insana ( 1982 ) Daniele Del Giudice ( 1983 ) Aldo Busi ( 1984 ) Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa ( 1985 ) Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi ( 1986 ) Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice ( 1987 ) Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina ( 1988 ) Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri ( 1990 ) Anna Cascella ( 1991 ) Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani ( 1992 ) Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi ( 1993 ) Ernesto Franco ( 1994 ) Roberto Deidier ( 1995 ) Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa ( 1996 ) Fabrizio Rondolino ( 1997 ) Alba Donati ( 1998 ) Paolo Febbraro ( 1999 ) Evelina Santangelo ( 2000 ) Giuseppe Lupo ( 2001 ) Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso ( 2003 ) Adriano Lo Monaco ( 2004 ) Piercarlo Rizzi ( 2005 ) Francesco Fontana ( 2006 ) Paolo Fallai ( 2007 ) Luca Giachi ( 2008 ) Carlo Carabba ( 2009 ) Gabriele Pedullà ( 2010 ) Foreign author : Alain Robbe - Grillet ( 1982 ) Thomas Bernhard ( 1983 ) Adolfo Bioy Casares ( 1984 ) Bernard Malamud ( 1985 ) Friedrich Dürrenmatt ( 1986 ) Doris Lessing ( 1987 ) V.S. Naipaul ( 1988 ) Octavio Paz ( 1989 ) Christa Wolf ( 1990 ) Kurt Vonnegut ( 1991 ) Bohumil Hrabal ( 1992 ) Seamus Heaney ( 1993 ) J.M. Coetzee ( 1994 ) Vladimir Vojnovič ( 1995 ) David Grossman ( 1996 ) Philippe Jaccottet ( 1998 ) Don DeLillo ( 1999 ) Aleksandar Tišma ( 2000 ) Nuruddin Farah ( 2001 ) Per Olov Enquist ( 2002 ) Adunis ( 2003 ) Les Murray ( 2004 ) Magda Szabó ( 2005 ) Uwe Timm ( 2006 ) Bapsi Sidhwa ( 2007 ) Viktor Erofeev ( 2009 ) Edmund White ( 2010 ) Javier Cercas ( 2011 ) Elizabeth Strout ( 2012 ) Péter Esterházy ( 2013 ) Joe R. Lansdale ( 2014 ) Emmanuel Carrère ( 2015 ) Marilynne Robinson ( 2016 ) Cees Nooteboom ( 2017 ) Italian Author : Alberto Moravia ( 1982 ) Vittorio Sereni alla memoria ( 1983 ) Italo Calvino ( 1984 ) Mario Luzi ( 1985 ) Paolo Volponi ( 1986 ) Luigi Malerba ( 1987 ) Oreste del Buono ( 1988 ) Giovanni Macchia ( 1989 ) Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa ( 1990 ) Andrea Zanzotto ( 1991 ) Ottiero Ottieri ( 1992 ) Attilio Bertolucci ( 1993 ) Luigi Meneghello ( 1994 ) Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera ( 1995 ) Nico Orengo ( 1996 ) Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni ( 1997 ) Carlo Ginzburg ( 1998 ) Alessandro Parronchi ( 1999 ) Elio Bartolini ( 2000 ) Roberto Alajmo ( 2001 ) Andrea Camilleri ( 2002 ) Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger ( 2003 ) Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi ( 2004 ) pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte ( 2005 ) pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni ( 2006 ) pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli ( 2007 ) pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga ( 2008 ) pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise ( 2009 ) pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. ( 2010 ) pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego ( 2011 ) pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio ( 2012 ) pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti ( 2013 ) pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro ( 2014 ) pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli ( 2015 ) pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri ( 2016 ) pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi ( 2017 ) `` Five Continents '' Award : Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago ( 1992 ) Kenzaburō Ōe ( 1993 ) Stephen Spender ( 1994 ) Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino ( 1996 ) Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr ( 1997 ) `` Palermo bridge for Europe '' Award : Dacia Maraini ( 1999 ), Premio Palermo ponte per il Mediterraneo Alberto Arbasino ( 2000 ) `` Ignazio Buttitta '' Award : Nino De Vita ( 2003 ) Attilio Lolini ( 2005 ) Roberto Rossi Precerotti ( 2006 ) Silvia Bre ( 2007 ) Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa ( 2009 ) Michela Murgia ( 2010 ) Eugenio Baroncelli ( 2011 ) Davide Orecchio ( 2012 ) Valerio Magrelli ( 2013 ) Giorgio Falco ( 2014 ) Marco Missiroli ( 2015 ) Romana Petri ( 2016 ) Stefano Massini ( 2017 ) Special award of the President : Ibrahim al - Koni ( 2009 ) Emmanuele Maria Emanuele ( 2010 ) Antonio Calabrò ( 2011 ) Poetry prize : Antonio Riccardi ( 2010 ) Translation Award : Evgenij Solonovic ( 2010 ) Identity and dialectal literatures award : Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini ( 2010 ) Essays Prize : Marzio Barbagli ( 2010 ) Mondello for Multiculturality Award : Kim Thúy ( 2011 ) Mondello Youths Award : Claudia Durastanti ( 2011 ) Edoardo Albinati ( 2012 ) Alessandro Zaccuri ( 2017 ) `` Targa Archimede '', Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa : Enzo Sellerio ( 2011 ) Prize for Literary Criticism : Salvatore Silvano Nigro ( 2012 ) Maurizio Bettini ( 2013 ) Enrico Testa ( 2014 ) Ermanno Cavazzoni ( 2015 ) Serena Vitale ( 2016 ) Antonio Prete ( 2017 ) Award for best motivation : Simona Gioè ( 2012 ) Special award for travel literature : Marina Valensise ( 2013 ) Special Award 40 Years of Mondello : Gipi ( 2014 ) Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Laureates Robert Rozhdestvensky ( 1966 ) Bulat Okudzhava ( 1967 ) László Nagy ( 1968 ) Mak Dizdar ( 1969 ) Miodrag Pavlović ( 1970 ) W.H. Auden ( 1971 ) Pablo Neruda ( 1972 ) Eugenio Montale ( 1973 ) Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca ( 1974 ) Léopold Sédar Senghor ( 1975 ) Eugène Guillevic ( 1976 ) Artur Lundkvist ( 1977 ) Rafael Alberti ( 1978 ) Miroslav Krleža ( 1979 ) Hans Magnus Enzensberger ( 1980 ) Blaže Koneski ( 1981 ) Nichita Stănescu ( 1982 ) Sachchidananda Vatsyayan ' Ajneya ' ( 1983 ) Andrei Voznesensky ( 1984 ) Yiannis Ritsos ( 1985 ) Allen Ginsberg ( 1986 ) Tadeusz Różewicz ( 1987 ) Desanka Maksimović ( 1988 ) Thomas Shapcott ( 1989 ) Justo Jorge Padrón ( 1990 ) Joseph Brodsky ( 1991 ) Ferenc Juhász ( 1992 ) Gennadiy Aygi ( 1993 ) Ted Hughes ( 1994 ) Yehuda Amichai ( 1995 ) Makoto Ooka ( 1996 ) Adunis ( 1997 ) Liu Banjiu ( 1998 ) Yves Bonnefoy ( 1999 ) Edoardo Sanguineti ( 2000 ) Seamus Heaney ( 2001 ) Slavko Mihalić ( 2002 ) Tomas Tranströmer ( 2003 ) Vasco Graça Moura ( 2004 ) William S. Merwin ( 2005 ) Nancy Morejón ( 2006 ) Mahmoud Darwish ( 2007 ) Fatos Arapi ( 2008 ) Tomaž Šalamun ( 2009 ) Lyubomir Levchev ( 2010 ) Mateja Matevski ( 2011 ) Mongane Wally Serote ( 2012 ) José Emilio Pacheco ( 2013 ) Ko Un ( 2014 ) Bei Dao ( 2015 ) Margaret Atwood ( 2016 ) Charles Simic ( 2017 ) Adam Zagajewski ( 2018 ) Poetry Now Award Dorothy Molloy ( 2005 ) Derek Mahon ( 2006 ) Seamus Heaney ( 2007 ) Harry Clifton ( 2008 ) Derek Mahon ( 2009 ) Sinéad Morrissey ( 2010 ) Seamus Heaney ( 2011 ) Michael Longley ( 2012 ) Dennis O'Driscoll ( 2013 ) David Cohen Prize 1990s V.S. Naipaul ( 1993 ) Harold Pinter ( 1995 ) Muriel Spark ( 1997 ) William Trevor ( 1999 ) 2000s Doris Lessing ( 2001 ) Beryl Bainbridge and Thom Gunn ( 2003 ) Michael Holroyd ( 2005 ) Derek Mahon ( 2007 ) Seamus Heaney ( 2009 ) 2010s Julian Barnes ( 2011 ) Hilary Mantel ( 2013 ) Tony Harrison ( 2015 ) Tom Stoppard ( 2017 ) BNE : XX877721 BNF : cb120378139 ( data ) CiNii : DA02220052 GND : 118547410 ISNI : 0000 0001 2321 5547 LCCN : n79099140 MusicBrainz : c867c229 - 53a9 - 447e - 8191 - 9cbccd4a827d NDL : 00474775 NKC : jn19990003287 NLA : 36170680 SELIBR : 208744 SNAC : w6z03890 SUDOC : 028568338 VIAF : 109557338 Ireland portal Northern Ireland portal Literature portal Mythology portal Poetry portal Writing portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seamus_Heaney&oldid=856167006 '' Categories : 1939 births 2013 deaths 20th - century writers from Northern Ireland 21st - century writers from Northern Ireland Alumni of Queen 's University Belfast Saoithe David Cohen Prize recipients Essayists from Northern Ireland Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Fellows of St John 's College, Oxford Formalist poets Harvard University faculty Translators from Northern Ireland Nobel laureates from Northern Ireland Nobel laureates in Literature Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates People educated at St Columb 's College People from County Londonderry People from Dublin ( city ) People of the Year Awards winners Translators from Irish Translators from Old English Translators from Polish Translators from Scottish Gaelic Translators to English 20th - century British dramatists and playwrights 20th - century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland 20th - century poets from Northern Ireland 20th - century male writers Male poets from Northern Ireland 21st - century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland 21st - century poets from Northern Ireland Members of the Royal Irish Academy Oxford Professors of Poetry Irish PEN Award for Literature winners 20th - century translators 21st - century translators Male dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland Male essayists 20th - century essayists 21st - century essayists Male writers from Northern Ireland Hidden categories : CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown Webarchive template wayback links Use Irish English from February 2015 All Wikipedia articles written in Irish English Use dmy dates from October 2012 Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers AC with 14 elements Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Aragonés Asturianu Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه বাংলা Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Български Bosanski Brezhoneg Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Estremeñu Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Gaeilge Gàidhlig Galego 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Hrvatski Ido Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia Interlingua Íslenska Italiano עברית Kiswahili Kurdî Latina Latviešu Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Magyar മലയാളം Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Occitan ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی Plattdüütsch Polski Português Română Runa Simi Русский Scots Shqip Simple English Slovenčina Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska తెలుగు Türkçe Українська اردو Tiếng Việt Yorùbá 粵語 中文 66 more Edit links This page was last edited on 23 August 2018, at 09 : 48 ( UTC ). 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Question: who won the nobel prize for literature in 1995
Answer: Seamus Justin Heaney