The Irish poet John Montague is to be made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, one of France’s highest decorations. He and his wife Elizabeth Wassell live part of the year in Nice. Montague, who turned 80 last year, said he was excited to learn that his name was included on the French government’s annual Bastille Day honours list: "I was very pleased. People have the other country – a dream of another country, as a corrective to the one that you grew up in. I have the French thing".(click here to read Irish Times article)

If you are intrigued and want to read more on Liberties author John Montague, purchase his biography The Pear is Ripe - A Memoir, or bury yourself in his collected stories A Ball of Fire.