Dom Moraes

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Dominic Francis Moraes (born July 19, 1938 in Mumbai , India , † June 2, 2004 ibid) was an Indian writer , poet and journalist . Moraes published more than 30 works exclusively in English and is counted among the most important English-language writers in India.

Life

Moraes was born in 1938 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, the son of the journalist and former newspaper publisher of the Indian Express , Frank Moraes, and his wife Beryl, a pathologist. He wrote his first poem at the age of 12 . As a child he traveled through Sri Lanka , Australia , New Zealand and the South Asian region through his father . Dom Moraes lived in England from the age of 16. In 1956 he began studying English at Jesus College at Oxford University .

Moraes published his first volume of poetry, A Beginning , in 1957 at Parton Press in London . With this work Moraes won the Hawthornden Prize , Great Britain's most prestigious literary award, in 1958 at the age of only 19 . This was followed in the next few years by further volumes of poetry: Poems (1960), John Nobody (1965) and Beldam etcetera (1966). In 1966 his autobiographical work My Son's Father was published .

After that, Moraes did not publish any lyrics for a long time. During this period he traveled extensively and edited magazines in London, Hong Kong and New York . He also worked as a war correspondent , wrote screenplays and directed more than 20 documentaries for the BBC and ITV . During this time he also wrote travelogues and was a regular author of the daily newspaper Afternoon . He also worked for the United Nations . One of his prose works from this period is the biography of Mrs. Gandhi , a biography of the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi .

In 1968 Moraes returned to India. In the 1980s he also began to write again. In 1983 he published the privately printed volume of poetry Absences . Another volume of poetry, In Cinnamon Shade , appeared in 2001 with some of his final poems. With Sarya Srivastava he co-wrote Out of God's Oven: Travels in a Fractured Land , which appeared in 1992, and The Long Strider , which appeared in 2003.

Dom Moraes died in Mumbai, India in 2004 at the age of 65 after a long history of cancer. Moraes was survived by his life partner Sarayu Srivatsa and his second marriage son, Francis.

See also

Works (selection)

  • A beginning . Parton Press, London 1957.
  • Poems . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1960.
  • John Nobody . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965.
  • Poems, 1955-1965 . Macmillan, New York 1966.
  • Beldam etcetera . Turret Books, London 1966.
  • My Son's Father . Macmillan, London 1968.
  • Mrs. Gandhi . Jonathan Cape, London 1980.
  • Absences . Selprint, Bombay 1983.
  • Collected Poems: 1957-1987 . Penguin, London 1987.
  • Serendip . Viking, New Delhi / New York 1990.
  • With Sarayu Srivatsa: Out of God's Oven: Travels in a Fractured Land . New Delhi 1992.
  • Never at home . Penguin, London 1994.
  • In Cinnamon Shade: New and Selected Poems . Carcanet, Manchester 2001.
  • With Sarayu Srivatsa: The Long Strider . Penguin, New Delhi / London 2003.

literature

  • Rajeev S. Patke: Poetry Since Independence . In: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (Ed.): A History of Indian Literature in English . Columbia University Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0-231-12810-X , pp. 243-275.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Michael Schmidt: Dom Moraes . In: The Independent , last accessed March 4, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c Alan Brownjohn: Obituary: Dom Moraes . In: The Guardian . London, June 4, 2004, last accessed March 4, 2020.
  3. ↑ dated July 12, 1958: Hawthornden Price . In: The Hindu , July 12, 2008, last accessed March 4, 2020.
  4. ^ Rajeev S. Patke: Poetry Since Independence . In: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (Ed.): A History of Indian Literature in English . Columbia University Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0-231-12810-X , p. 250.
  5. ↑ Dom Moraes . In: Encyclopaedia Britannica (britannica.com), last accessed on March 4, 2020.
  6. ↑ Dom Moraes . In: The Telegraph , June 4, 2004, last accessed March 4, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Moraes, cathedral
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moraes, Dominic Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian writer, poet and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Mumbai , India
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 2004
Place of death Mumbai , Maharashtra