Memoirist, travel writer, editor, literary critic and poet Kildare Dobbs died in hospital in Toronto on Monday of complications from kidney failure and congestive heart failure. He is survived by his wife, painter and photographer Linda Kooluris Dobbs, four children and his extended family. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Born in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Oct. 10, 1923, Mr. Dobbs was educated at St. Columba's College in Ireland and Jesus College Cambridge, served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and immigrated to Canada in the early 1950s.
A former editor at Macmillan, books columnist for The Toronto Star and a co-founder of The Tamarack Review, Mr. Dobbs was a bon vivant and an eloquent wordsmith. His many books include Running to Paradise, which won the Governor-General's Literary award in 1962, The Eleventh Hour: Poems for the Third Millennium and Running the Rapids: A Writer's Life.
A full obituary is forthcoming.