Over Christmas I have been reading The Letters of Seamus Heaney (Faber 2023). It’s a long book, but one to read slowly, dipping into it, and every reader will discover something that will appeal to them. This is the portrait of an artist from the 1960s when he is beginning to achieve recognition until his untimely death in 2013. I was fascinated by his efforts over many decades to balance the competing pressures of providing a secure livelihood for his family and finding space for his cr....