Providing a fitting end to this year’s Manchester Literature Festival, with the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing, we present a rare opportunity to hear the Nobel Laureate read and speak about his life and work. Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966 and since then he has published poetry, criticism and translations - including Beowulf - which have established him as one of the leading poets now at work. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. District and Circle was awarded the TS Eliot Prize in 2006. Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, appeared in 2008. In 2009 he received the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Heaney’s twelfth collection of poems entitled Human Chain, elicits continuities and solidarities, between husband and wife, child and parent.