Former president Michael D Higgins is to receive a lifetime achievement award at the An Post Book Awards later this month.
The honour is in recognition of his literary endeavours which include five collections of poetry and others of speeches and essays spanning a career of more than five decades.
Past recipients of the award include Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry, Maeve Binchy, Colm Tóibín, Eavan Boland, Edna O’Brien and Seamus Heaney.
“Both politically and personally, Michael D Higgins has exerted a profound and lasting influence on Irish art and culture,” the event organisers said in a statement.
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His “stalwart championing” of Irish writers has been a “source of inspiration to many who have participated in the An Post Irish Book Awards over the years”, the statement went on, adding that “Irish creatives in general have felt a real sense of comfort in having a poet in the Áras”.
Mr Higgins presented the lifetime achievement award to Heaney in 2011, the organisers noted, and it was “a particularly fitting moment that we now confer this honour upon Higgins himself”.
[ Michael D Higgins thanks public for support as he departs Áras an UachtaráinOpens in new window ]
The chairman of the book awards, Larry Mac Hale, said Mr Higgins had “consistently demonstrated the power of culture to connect, challenge, and inspire society”.
“Through his engagement with the arts and his unwavering support for creative voices across Ireland, he has nurtured an environment where ideas, imagination, and expression can thrive.”
[ The activist in the Áras: How Michael D Higgins shaped the presidencyOpens in new window ]
