An exhibition celebrating the writings of a co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix shape has opened at Trinity College Dublin.
Launched yesterday by Nobel Prize winner Prof James Watson, they tell of a lifetime of writing, from his childhood in Chicago to his latest autobiographical work, Avoid Boring People.
On display throughout September in Trinity College Library's Long Room, the travelling collection is entitled Honest Jim-James D Watson the Writer.
"Writing is a good, honest profession," Prof Watson told his audience at the launch yesterday evening. "I think I am not going to write any more books," he acknowledged however.
Prof Watson was a co-discoverer of the double-helix shape of the human genetic blueprint, DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine together with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives in Long Island, New York, where Prof Watson is the founding chancellor, Trinity's Smurfit Institute of Genetics and the college's library.
His book, The Double Helix, was an international bestseller and made him a recognised author. "It was a great story, so I wanted a great book," he said. "The first rule of good writing is be the first to tell a good story."
Access to the exhibition is via the Book of Kells exhibition in the library. Tickets cost €8, €7 for students and the elderly and a family ticket costs €16.