Diplomat, economist, poet, novelist, and professor of English, Douglas LePan has earned recognition both for his public service career and for his slender but distinguished body of creative writing, which has won two Governor General's awards--for poetry and for fiction.

Born to Arthur D'Orr and Dorothy Lucinda Edge LePan and raised in Toronto, LePan was an intelligent youth who, nevertheless, matured slowly and was made self-conscious by a severe stammer, as he notes in his memoirs, Bright Glass of Memory (1979), a work marked by his characteristic undertones of restraint, discretion, and humility. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1935 with a B.A., first-class honors in English and history; he took a second B.A. at Merton College, Oxford, in 1937. An M.A. from Oxford was awarded in 1948. He spent one year teaching in the Department of English at the University of Toronto before moving to a...