Irish novelist William Trevor dies at age 88

Irish novelist and playwright William Trevor, a master of short stories that often explored life's disappointments, has died at the age of 88 in his adopted English home, his publisher announced Monday.

Trevor set his tales mainly in his native Ireland or in England, where he had lived since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1952. He won one of Britain's top literary prizes, the Whitbread, three times; was short-listed four times for the Booker Prize, most recently in 2002 for "The Story of Lucy Gault"; and was a perennial object of speculation as a potential Nobel literature laureate.

[Robert Barr/AP]