Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE

28 April 1948 - 12 March 2015

It is hard to look at a future without Terry, his humour, wicked bubble-pricking comments, his amazing inventiveness, his style, the deftness of his puns, and the deep moral sense that pervaded all of the books, without being obtrusive. Time and again readers have told me how their lives had been shaped by them. Every time I finished reading a new book, I did so with a sense of immense satisfaction at having read yet another work by a master, at the tremendous sense of superb craftsmanship he had brought to the book, this amazing skill that produced books that can be read again and again over the years without ever feeling a loss of admiration, and so often discovering some historical or literary reference or joke that had passed me by on earlier readings.

In her tribute A.S.Byatt wrote that “No writer in my lifetime has given me as much pleasure and happiness.” I wholeheartedly endorse that.

— Colin Smythe

Read Colin Smythe's full tribute in the Irish Times