Derek Mahon

Derek Mahon was an Irish poet who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, into a Protestant family. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he edited the literary magazine Icarus and befriended other poets such as Michael Longley and Eavan Boland. He also spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris and travelled widely in North America and Europe. He worked as a journalist, teacher and screenwriter, and lived in various places, including London, Dublin and Kinsale. He published many poetry collections, such as Night Crossing (1968), The Snow Party (1975), The Hunt by Night (1982), The Hudson Letter (1995) and Life on Earth (2008). He also translated poems from French, German, Spanish and Chinese, and wrote adaptations of plays by Molière, Racine and Sophocles. He was awarded many prizes and honors, such as the Irish Times Poetry Now Award, the David Cohen Prize for Literature and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He was widely regarded as one of the most talented and innovative Irish poets of the late 20th century, known for his formal mastery, lyrical grace and social critique. He died in Cork, Ireland, after a short illness, at the age of 78.