¡°It is very, very hard to talk about anything else here,¡± confesses Colm T¨®ib¨ªn of the ¡°political cataclysm¡± that is the US presidency of Donald Trump.

Often described as Ireland¡¯s greatest living writer, the award-winning novelist is currently a professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York City, where, he says, classroom conversations are increasingly dominated by the latest controversial statement by the maverick Commander-in-Chief.

The temporary immigrant travel ban directed at seven?Muslim-majority countries?has caused particular disquiet on campus, says the Wexford-born author of Brooklyn, who has held professorships at Stanford and Princeton universities.

¡°Americans have not had the problems with religious division we have had in Ireland ¨C asking about someone¡¯s religion is simply out of bounds here,¡± T¨®ib¨ªn says, speaking to?Times Higher Education shortly before being named chancellor of the University of Liverpool on 2 February.

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He notes that the religious element of Trump's executive order ¨C which many have claimed targets Muslims ¨C ¡°goes against the whole foundation myth of this country ¨C it has really has people disturbed here¡±.

The ban on Iranian nationals is particularly egregious given the ¡°extraordinary contribution to intellectual life in America¡± made by exiled Iranian academics and students over the past 30 years, he says.

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T¨®ib¨ªn adds that as a?gay man, he wonders ¡°what legislation will be rolled back next week ¨C will you be able to discriminate against a federal worker for reasons of sexuality?¡±?

The author, who has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, says he decided to tackle the Trump phenomenon directly in his literature classes at Columbia, the elite Manhattan-based private university.

¡°We were studying Irish prose of the 1890s in our first class after the inauguration and I had to say something about [Trump] at the start,¡± T¨®ib¨ªn?recalls.

¡°I explained how this literature emerged from one of the darkest, nastiest times in Irish history, when Irish forces had worked with the British to remove someone ¨C Charles Parnell [the Irish nationalist leader] ¨C who offered hope for an entire nation,¡± he says.

Examining the poetry of W.B. Yeats and the plays of George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Synge could help students understand how great literature ¡°can arise from the same kind of political cataclysm¡±, argues T¨®ib¨ªn.

Among the author¡¯s fans are Barack Obama, who added his latest novel ,?about a widow living in 1960s Ireland, to his holiday reading list in November 2014.

So could Trump learn something from any of T¨®ib¨ªn¡¯s novels, or literature more generally? The president claims his favourite novel is the 1929 classic All Quiet on the Western Front, although he prefers to read only ¡°passages...areas [or] chapters¡± of books.

¡°We¡¯ve had the exceptional presidency of Barack Obama, who read a lot, but I don¡¯t mind if politicians don¡¯t read novels or poetry,¡± says T¨®ib¨ªn, who adds that many Irish prime ministers have been ¡°progressive without being literary¡±.

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¡°I don¡¯t expect him to quote Wallace Stevens or carry the collected poems of John Ashbery under his arm, but it is important for the president to have a trained mind,¡± he says.

Trump appears to have his ¡°own use of language and own sense of public policy¡±, which has little relation to evidence, and he is ¡°striking in his thoughtlessness¡±, according to T¨®ib¨ªn.

¡°There is a blankness about Trump that makes him very easy to influence,¡± he adds. Trump¡¯s chief strategist Steve Bannon is, in contrast, extremely well read, he says.

¡°Steve Bannon can quote Shakespeare and has read a lot without it improving his liberal tendencies, so there is no point in saying reading makes you a good citizen.¡±

T¨®ib¨ªn?says he hoped to use his role at Liverpool to champion international academic openness, which had been imperilled by Trump¡¯s election and Brexit.?

¡°Learning and culture should be blown on the wind ¨C they should be as free as the air,¡± he says, adding that?Liverpool and other UK universities had been hugely important in promoting a spirit of openness that had led to a more prosperous, culturally diverse and tolerant Europe.

¡°The extraordinary aspiration of those in the Republic of Ireland would not have been realised without access to British universities,¡± he says, explaining that thousands of Irish students and academics have benefited from UK academia¡¯s ¡°openness to Irish culture¡±, in turn helping to transform Ireland¡¯s economy and society.

Attracted initially by the strong links between Liverpool and Dublin (¡°almost twin cities¡±), T¨®ib¨ªn says he was also drawn to his new position by Liverpool¡¯s role in creating educational opportunities for low-income students.

¡°In New York I am constantly aware of the problems of access and just how privileged students are at Columbia,¡± he says. In contrast, Liverpool is a university that is ¡°elite academically, but never seen as distant from the city¡±.

¡°My mother left school at 14, and when my father went to University College Dublin there were only three scholarships for the whole county of Wexford, so I have huge appreciation for the importance of access to university,¡± he adds.

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jack.grove@tesglobal.com