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Dom Moraes was born in Bombay in 1938. In 1954, he met Stephen Spender and Karl Shapiro, both famous poets who edited literary magazines. Spender published his poems in Encounter and Shapiro in Poetry Chicago. At Oxford University he received criticism and praise from W.H. Auden and Allen Tate. Still an undergraduate, he published his first book of poetry, A Beginning, which was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Reviewing the book, Edwin Muir said that it ‘had remarkable maturity and the promise of greatness’. After leaving Oxford, Dom became a well-known journalist and foreign correspondent. He covered the Eichmann trial, as well as wars in Algeria, Israel, and Vietnam. He traveled to some of the more remote and dangerous parts of the world. In later life he was employed as a literary consultant by the United Nations agency UNFPA. His early poetry showed a natural lyrical talent allied to precocious technical skill. As his perceptions deepened and his subject matter acquired more range, he developed a remarkable mastery over his art. He has published ten volumes of verse, two books of translation from Hebrew poetry, and over twenty works of prose. Dom Moraes lives in Mumbai.