Seamus Heaney

(1939 - 2013)

The poet Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1939, the firstborn of nine. He began publishing poems as a student at Queen’s University, Belfast, under the pseudonym Incertus. In addition to several collections of poetry, his books include a translation of Beowulf and adaptations of two plays by Sophocles. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.