The judges for the prestigious award were not unanimous in their decision to select this novel, which depicts an Ireland descending into totalitarianism.
He led a movement that rejected historiography’s traditional emphasis on great events and leaders in favor of mining the “mental universe” of peasants, merchants and clergymen.
Coping with illness was the subject of a popular memoir, “First, You Cry.” In “Last Wish,” a best seller, she wrote about helping her mother end her life. She chose to end her own life as well.