Award Jacob's Award

British Book Award (Lifetime Achievement Award ∙ 1999)

Irish Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award (2010)

W H Smith Book Award for Fiction (2001)

Irish PEN Award (2007)

Irish Book Award (2012)

Order of the British Empire (Commander, 1977)

Bennett Award (1990)

Royal Society of Literature (Companion of Literature, 1994)

Lannan Literary Award (1996)

David Cohen British Literature Prize (1999)

Irish PEN Award (2002)

Order of the British Empire (Knight Commander, 2002)

Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (2003)

American Academy of Arts and Letters (2005)

International Nonino Prize (2008)

Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature (2008)

Irish Book Award Lifetime Achievement (2008)

Saoi, Aosdána (2014)