TERRY PRATCHETT, the late fantasy novelist, is to live on in Trinity College after his daughter discovered a letter in which he requested the creation of a scholarship in his name at the Dublin university.
Last April, a month after the writer died from Alzheimer’s, his daughter Rhianna Pratchett and his business manager Rob Wilkins found a number of unopened letters in the late writer’s safe.
“I was in tears reading through my letter,” said Wilkins. “There was a paragraph where he wrote, ‘I fancy a memorial scholarship in my name. Speak to David Lloyd [a former director of strategic innovation at Trinity] and make it so’. There’s no higher command in Pratchett speak.”
The author’s estate has now endowed A$100,000 (€64,000) for a biennial scholarship at Trinity and the University of South Australia (UniSA) in Adelaide.
The Sir Terry Pratchett Memorial Scholarship will allow a student to attend both institutions for two years, covering fees, travel, accommodation and research costs.
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The bequest was made through Pratchett’s Discworld Foundation charity and will pay for the scholarship in perpetuity, according to Lloyd, a Dubliner who is now vice- chancellor of UniSA.
“The donation is sufficient to sustain the scholarship forever. It’s for one student every two years. They become a student of the University of South Australia and spend a year in Trinity. We want a student in place by the end of this year, so we’ll launch a call over the next couple of weeks,” Lloyd said.
Pratchett wrote more than 50 novels in his lifetime, selling 85m books in 38 languages. He is best known for the Discworld fantasy series, which frequently topped bestseller lists.
The scholarship, which will be conducted through Trinity’s Long Room Hub and UniSA’s Hawke Research Institute, will allow students to complete cultural research relevant to Pratchett’s work.
The writer also campaigned on issues such as natural history, Alzheimer’s research, and assisted suicide, so the scope is broad, according to Professor Darryl Jones, dean of the faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Trinity.
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“This can mean fantasy or science fiction scholars working in the fields of literature or people with an interest in literary satire,” Jones said.
“More culturally, and broadly, it can link to people with interests in assisted dying or Alzheimer’s. We don’t foresee medics taking it up, because it is social sciences and humanities, but sociologists [might], for example.”
Lloyd and Wilkins designed the scholarship with a broad scope. “We don’t want someone to become a Terry Pratchett scholar; we want someone who can draw inspiration from what Terry wrote,” said Lloyd.
The writer built a relationship with Ireland in the later years of his life. In 2008, Trinity gave him an honorary doctorate of literature. The novelist admired Trinity’s Long Room library, which he compared to the fictional Unseen University from his Discworld series and used as inspiration for his 2013 cartoon short The Duel, a collaboration with Trinity’s Animation Hub, Ballyfermot College and Irish animation studio Giant Creative.
In 2010, Lloyd invited Pratchett to become an adjunct professor at the School of English in Trinity. “After that, he would come several times a year and was closely involved in a lot of our activity,” said Jones.
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“He would give lectures, classes and seminars for our creative writing master’s degree. I was the head of the School of English at the time, so technically I was his boss.”
In 2011, Pratchett met Queen Elizabeth in Trinity during her state visit to Ireland. He was also involved in supervising Muireann O’Sullivan, a PhD student researching his work.
“On the back of our professional relationship at the university, Terry and I developed a friendship over time,” said Lloyd.
Wilkins, who accompanied him on trips to Dublin, said the author considered Trinity a second home. “Terry felt that in his later years, if it wasn’t for the Alzheimer’s, he could have seen the two of us being authors in residence.”
In 2012, Lloyd was appointed head of UniSA, but kept in contact with Pratchett. The writer last visited Ireland for the premiere of The Duel in October 2013, before his condition deteriorated. He died at home last March, eight years after being diagnosed with the disease.
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Pratchett once said no one is truly dead “until the ripples they cause in the world die away”. With a perpetual scholarship in place, the writer’s influence will take a long time to wane.
“This will allow Sir Terry Pratchett’s name to be associated with Trinity in perpetuity,” said Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, director of Trinity’s Long Room Hub. “It’s a very special gift and typical of the man.”