Dom Moraes, 66; Poet Was a Leading Literary Figure in India

Dom Moraes, 66, one of India’s leading literary figures, died Wednesday of a heart attack at his home in Bombay, the Press Trust of India reported. He had been battling cancer.

Over a five-decade career, Moraes published almost 30 books, including a biography of the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; edited magazines in London, Hong Kong and New York; and worked as a journalist in several countries. He also worked for the United Nations.

In addition, he wrote scripts for more than 20 television documentaries from England, India, Cuba and Israel for the British Broadcasting Corp. and Britain’s ITV, his Indian publisher, Penguin India, said in his online profile.

Born in Bombay in 1938, Moraes began writing poems at 12. His father, Frank Moraes, was also a noted figure in India, an editor and author who took his son on his extensive travels through Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, shaping his son’s creative imagination.

Dom Moraes’ first book of poems, “A Beginning,” was published by London’s Parton Press when he was 19. It won the Hawthornden Prize for best work of the imagination in 1958. Moraes was the first non-English person to win the prize.

At the age of 28, Moraes published “Poems 1955-65,” which received critical acclaim.