Eunice de Souza

Eunice de Souza (1940-2016) was born in Pune where she grew up. She graduated from Bombay’s Sophia College, University of Bombay, did her postgraduate work at Marquette University, Wisconsin, and years later obtained a doctorate for her thesis on Indian poetry and criticism from the University of Bombay. She taught English literature at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and was head of the department till she retired. There she distinguished herself as an inspirational teacher influencing generations of students. She was a scholar of illuminating research into poetry written in English in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was the anthologist of several works of prose and poetry, the last These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry (2012) co-edited with Melanie Silgardo.

She was the author of several books of poems. Her first — the groundbreaking Fix was published in 1979, followed by Women in Dutch Painting (1988), Ways of Belonging (1990) and Learn from the Almond Leaf (2016). She also wrote two novels—Dangerlok (2001) and Dev and Simran (2003) as well as several books for children.

In the last several years of her life she brought all the weight of her knowledge and her passion for literature to her much-loved weekly Mumbai Mirror cultural column which she wrote right to the end.