Biography
Poet, novelist, biographer, critic and editor, Stewart Donovan was born in Ingonish, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Professor Donovan studied Modern Literature with Rev. R.J. MacSween at St. Francis Xavier University where he received his B.A. He received an M.A. from the University of Ottawa and his Ph.D. in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama from University College Dublin where he studied under major Irish writers and critics including Seamus Heaney, John McGahern and Denis Donoghue. For the past 26 years Donovan has taught Modern literature, drama, film and cultural studies at St. Thomas University. Professor Donovan is the founder of the university’s Irish Studies Program, its Film and Media Program and of The Nashwaak Reviewa literary, historical, arts and cultural magazine, which he continues to edit. His biography of R. J. MacSween, The Forgotten World (CBU Press, 2007), was short listed for both of Atlantic Canada’s non-fiction awards in 2008. From Ingonish Out, his new and selected poems, was published in 2012 by Breton Books. He has also published on Canadian, Irish, British and American Modernism.