Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection appeared in 1966, and since then he has published poetry, criticism and translations which have established him as one of the leading poets of his generation. In 1995, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. District and Circle, his twelfth collection of poems, and his first new collection for five years is published 2006.