Prof. Dr.

born in Vancouver, and educated at the universities of British Columbia, Oxford and Toronto. Since 1970, he has been on the faculty of the University of Toronto, where he is University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature; but his interest in stories and songs has taken him around the world, to the hunters of the Kalahari and the herders of Mongolia as well as to the islands of the Caribbean, the England of Queen Victoria, and the wide-ranging literary and cultural traditions that have shaped the Americas. He worked on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry and the Alaska Native Claims Commission, was Senior Research Associate with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, and has worked extensively on native land claims in Canada, the United States, Africa and Australia. He was Poetry Editor of Saturday Night magazine, and has lectured widely on literary, historical and cultural issues. Recent books include: Come Back To Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies (1993), If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground (2003), Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations (2006), A Covenant in Wonder with the World: The Power of Stories and Songs (2012), and Island: How Islands Transform the World (2013). He lives with his wife, Lorna Goodison, in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia, Canada.