SOURCE: An interview in The Paris Review, Vol. 31, No. 110, Spring, 1989, pp. 118-51.

In the following interview, Trevor discusses his background, the creative process, and the influences on and major themes of his fiction.

[Stout]: What did you do after leaving university?

[Trevor]: When I left Trinity Dublin, I tried to get a job, and it was very difficult in those days—in the 1950s in Ireland. Eventually I found an advertisement in a newspaper that said someone's child needed to be taught. "Would suit a nun" it suggested at the end of it, which was interesting, and I actually got that job. So I used to leave Dublin every day on the bus, go about twenty-five miles into the country, and teach this rather backward child. Her mother brought in the neighbor's children, and a little academy was formed.

Why had they asked for a nun?

Because nuns...