Dom Moraes

Dom Moraes{{cite web |title=Dom Moraes |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dom-moraes-730527.html |website=independent.co.uk |date=4 June 2004 |access-date=3 September 2018}} was born in Bombay, British India to Beryl and Frank Moraes, former editor of The Times of India and later The Indian Express. He had a tormented relationship with his mother Beryl, who had been confined to a mental asylum since his childhood.{{ cite news|title=The Poet Who Remained a Boy - Dom Moraes Early Life|url= https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/the-poet-who-remained-a-boy/article4912158.ece|newspaper=The Hindu|date= 13 July 2013 }} His aunt was the historian Teresa Albuquerque.{{cite news|newspaper=The Wire|url=https://thewire.in/146812/teresa-albuquerque-historian-colonial-bombay-goan-diaspora-no/|title=Teresa Albuquerque, Historian of Colonial Bombay and the Goan Diaspora, is No More|last=Noronha|first=Frederick|date=12 June 2017|access-date=13 June 2017}} He attended the city's St. Mary's School, and then left for England to enroll at Jesus College, Oxford.{{cite web |title=Dom Moraes |url=http://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poet/dom-moraes/ |website=modernpoetryintranslation.com |access-date=3 September 2018 |archive-date=2 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190502225530/http://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poet/dom-moraes/ |url-status=dead }}

Moraes spent eight years in Britain (in London and Oxford), New York City, Hong Kong, Delhi and Bombay.{{cite journal |title=Poetic Parable: A Note on the Poetry of Dom Moraes |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |volume=52 |issue=206 |pages=205–211 |publisher=jstor.org |jstor=30088567 |last1=Doherty |first1=Francis |year=1963 }}

David Archer published Moraes' first collection of poems, A Beginning, in 1957. When he was 19, still an undergraduate, he became the first Indian to win the Hawthornden Prize and was presented with £100 and a silver medal by Lord David Cecil at the Arts Council of Britain on 10 July 1958.{{cite news |title=Hawthornden prize |url=https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-miscellaneous/dated-July-12-1958-Hawthornden-prize/article15259265.ece |access-date=7 July 2018 |newspaper=The Hindu |date=12 July 1958}}

He edited magazines in London, Hong Kong and New York. He became the editor of The Asia Magazine in 1971. He scripted and partially directed over 20 television documentaries for the BBC and ITV. He was a war correspondent in Algeria, Israel and Vietnam. In 1976 he joined the United Nations.{{cite web |title=Dom Moraes |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1463547/Dom-Moraes.html |website=telegraph.co.uk |date=4 June 2004 |access-date=3 September 2018}}

Moraes conducted one of the first interviews of the Dalai Lama after the Tibetan spiritual leader fled to India in 1959. The Dalai Lama was then 23 and Moraes, 20.{{cite web |title=A Requiem To Domsky |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/a-requiem-to-domsky/224589 |website=outlookindia.com |access-date=3 September 2018}}

In 1961–62 he was one of the very few public Indian figures to strongly criticize the Indian Army takeover of Goa, land of his forefathers – Daman and Diu from Portuguese India. He tore up his Indian passport on TV in protest.{{cite web |title=SAHGAL'S PROTEST STEMS FROM HATRED FOR MODI |url=https://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/usual-suspects/sahgals-protest-stems-from-hatred-for-modi.html |website=dailypioneer.com |access-date=3 September 2018}} He was later allowed back in the country.{{cite book |title=Return of Stranger Dom Moraes |chapter=Return as a Stranger Dom Moraes and the Ambiguity of Homecoming |url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789401211086/B9789401211086-s021.xml |date=January 2014 |pages=313–320 |publisher=brill.com |doi=10.1163/9789401211086_021 |isbn=978-94-012-1108-6 |access-date=3 September 2018 |last1=Chattopadhyay |first1=Sayan }}

When the Gujarat riots erupted in 2002, with their heavy toll of Muslim dead, Moraes left for Ahmedabad the minute the news came through, saying that since he was a Catholic, Muslims would not see him as an enemy. Even though he was physically in considerable pain by then, he was one of the first on the scene.{{cite news |title=Brilliant young writer, whose star, lauded by bohemian London, dimmed in later life |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jun/04/guardianobituaries.india |newspaper=The Guardian |date=4 June 2004 |publisher=theguardian.com |access-date=3 September 2018 |last1=Brownjohn |first1=Alan }}

File:Memorial to Dom Moraes - geograph.org.uk - 1118472.jpg

Moraes ended his writing career, writing books in collaboration with Sarayu Srivatsa.{{cite web |title=The stranger who found belonging at last |url=https://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/06/13/stories/2004061300080100.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930184259/http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/06/13/stories/2004061300080100.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=30 September 2007 |website=The Hindu |access-date=3 September 2018}}{{cite journal |title=Death and Departure: Meeting Dom Moraes |journal=Indian Literature |volume=48 |issue=4 (222) |pages=7–15 |publisher=jstor.org |jstor=23341511 |last1=Bhattacharjee |first1=Sankarlal |year=2004 }}

He had a lifelong battle with alcoholism. Moraes suffered from cancer, but refused treatment and died from a heart attack in Bandra, Mumbai. He was buried in the city's Sewri Cemetery.{{cite news| url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071013/saturday/above.htm| title=Requiem to Dom Moraes| first=Khushwant| last=Singh| newspaper=The Tribune| date=13 October 2007}} Many of Dom's old friends and publishers attended the memorial service in Odcombe. A headstone in yellow Jaisalmer stone lies embedded in the front lawn of the Church of St Peter and St Paul to mark the service.{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}}

In 1956, aged 18, he was courted by Audrey Wendy Abbott who later changed her name to Henrietta. They married in 1961. He left her, according to his close friends in London, but did not divorce her.{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}} He had a son, Francis Moraes, with his second wife Judith, whom he divorced, and returned to India in 1968. In 1969, he married the Indian actress Leela Naidu. They were treated as a star couple, and known across the world for over two decades. Their marriage ended in a separation.{{ cite news|title=Leela Naidu personified grace and beauty|url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Leela-Naidu-personified-grace-and-beauty/articleshow/4831749.cms|newspaper=The Times of India|date= 29 July 2009 }} For the last 13 years of his life he lived with Sarayu Srivatsa, with whom he co-authored two books.

• 1951: Green is the Grass, a book of cricket essaysJames D. Coldham, "Book Reviews", The Cricketer, 31 May 1952, p. 181.
• 1957: A Beginning, his first book of poems (winner of the Hawthornden Prize in 1958)
• 1960: Poems, his second book of poems
• 1960: Gone Away: An Indian Journey, memoir
• 1965: John Nobody, his third book of poems
• 1967: Beldam & Others, a pamphlet of verse
• 1968: My Son's Father, autobiography
• 1983: Absences, book of poems
• 1987: Collected Poems: 1957-1987 (Penguin)
• 1990: Serendip (winner of the 1994 Sahitya Akademi Award)
• 1992: Out of God's Oven: Travels in a Fractured Land, co-authored with Sarayu Srivatsa{{cite web |title=Sarayu Srivatsa on Dom Moraes and their Travelogue Out of God's Oven |url=http://indianculturalforum.in/2017/09/18/sarayu-srivatsa-dom-moraes-out-of-gods-oven/ |website=indianculturalforum.in |date=18 September 2017 |access-date=3 September 2018}}
• 1994: Never at Home, memoir'' (Penguin){{cite web |title=Never at Home: A breathless account of Dom Moraes' globe-trotting days |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/books/story/19921231-book-review-never-at-home-by-dom-moraes-767351-2013-05-22 |website=indiatoday.in |date=22 May 2013 |access-date=16 July 2019}}
• 2003: The Long Strider, co-authored with Sarayu Srivatsa
• Heiress to Destiny, biography of Indira Gandhi
• 2012: Selected Poems edited by Ranjit Hoskote (Penguin){{cite web |title=Dom Moraes ( Selected Poems ) |url=https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/dom-moraes-selected-poems-NAG349/ |website=exoticindiaart.com |access-date=3 September 2018}}

• Penguin Modern Poets 2 (1965), some thirty poems in a shared volume with Kingsley Amis and Peter Porter[https://countryhouselibrary.co.uk/products/penguin-modern-poets-2 Country House Library]
• The Young British Poets (ed. Jeremy Robson, Chatto & Windus, 1971), a selection of five poems[https://www.ashrare.com/poetry_anthologies.html Ash Rare Books]
• The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (1992) ed. by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi{{cite web |title=The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets |url=https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/mehrotra-1993-oxford-india-anthology.html |website=cse.iitk.ac.in |access-date=23 August 2018}}{{cite web |title=Book review: 'Twelve Modern Indian Poets' by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19920815-book-review-twelve-modern-indian-poets-by-arvind-krishna-mehrotra-766731-2013-01-03 |website=indiatoday.in |date=3 January 2013 |access-date=23 August 2018}}

• [https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/books/story/19900515-i-regret-that-i-didnt-write-any-worthwhile-poetry-for-so-long-dom-moraes-812567-1990-05-15 "I regret that I didn't write any worthwhile poetry for so long: Dom Moraes"] Interview with Tarun Tejpal for India Today, 15 May 1990
• Voices of the Crossing - The impact of Britain on writers from Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. Ferdinand Dennis, Naseem Khan (eds), London: Serpent's Tail, 1998. Dom Moraes: p. 83 "Changes of Scenery."

{{portal|Biography|India|Poetry}}

• Indian poetry in English
• Indian English Literature

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.jayabhattacharjirose.com/indian-literature-in-english-by-dom-moraes/ “Indian Literature in English” by Dom Moraes ]
• Ranjit Hoskote: [https://web.archive.org/web/20040911150856/http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/06/13/stories/2004061300080100.htm Obituary for Dom Moraes], The Hindu, 13 June 2004.
• Archival Material at {{wikidata|qualifier|property|P485|Q24568958|P856|format=\[%q %p\]}}

{{Sahitya Akademi Award for English}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Moraes, Dom}}

Category:1938 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford

Category:English-language poets from India

Category:Goan Catholics

Category:Writers from Mumbai

Category:Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English

Category:20th-century English poets

Category:British male poets

Category:20th-century English male writers

Category:21st-century English male writers

Category:Moraes family