The Essential Douglas LePan

Douglas LePan was a Canadian writer, diplomat and professor of literature. Born May 25, 1914, LePan served in Italy with the Canadian Army during the Second World War—an experience he never forgot, and one that informed much of his literary output over the course of his career. He spent over a decade in the Canadian foreign service before taking up an academic life, teaching at Queen’s University and at the University of Toronto. He is one of a handful of writers to have won the Governor General’s Literary Award both for Poetry (in 1953 for The Net and the Sword) and for Fiction (in 1964 for The Deserter). LePan died in Toronto in 1998.

John Barton is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Hymn, For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin, and Polari. He has also published nine chapbooks as well as dozens of poems, essays and book reviews in literary publications across North America. During a three-decade career in literary magazine publishing, he served as co-editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and editor of The Malahat Review. He lives in Victoria, BC.