Biography
Dominic Francis Moraes, popularly known as Dom Moraes, was a Goan writer, poet and columnist. He published nearly 30 books.
Early Life
Moraes was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) to Beryl and Frank Moraes, former editor of the Times of India. He attended St. Mary's School (ISC), Mazagoan, Bombay, and Jesus College, Oxford University.
Moraes spent eight years in Britain, in London and Oxford, New York city, Hong Kong, Delhi and Mumbai.
Career
He edited magazines in London, Hong Kong and New York. He became the editor of The Asia Magazine in 1971. He scripted and partially directed over 20 television documentaries for the BBC and ITV. He was a war correspondent in Algeria, Israel and Vietnam. In 1976 he joined the United Nations.
Moraes conducted one of the first interviews of the Dalai Lama after the Tibetan spiritual leader fled to India in 1959. The Dalai Lama was then 23 and Moraes was 20. Moraes ended his writing career, writing books in collaboration with Sarayu Srivatsa.
Later Life
He had a lifelong battle with alcoholism. Moraes suffered from cancer, but refused treatment and died from a heart attack in Bandra, Mumbai. He was buried in the Sewri Cemetery in Mumbai and as per his last wishes Sarayu Srivatsa buried the soil from his grave in Odcombe, Somerset, on 19 July 2002 (his birthdate). Many of Dom's old friends and publishers attended the memorial service in Odcombe. A headstone in yellow Jaisalmer stone lies embedded in the front lawn of the church to mark the service.
When the Gujarat riots erupted in 2002, with their heavy toll of Muslim dead, Moraes left for Ahmedabad the minute the news came through, claiming that since he was a Catholic, Muslims would not see him as an enemy. Even though he was physically in considerable pain by then, he was one of the first on the scene.
Personal Life
In 1956, aged 18, he was courted by Henrietta Moraes. They married in 1961. He left her, according to his close friends in London, but did not divorce her.[citation needed] He had a son, Heff Moraes, with his second wife Judith. He later married celebrated Indian actress and beauty Leela Naidu and they were a star couple, known across several continents, for over two decades. They separated in the mid-1990s.
Awards and Recognitions
Hawthornden Prize for the best work of the imagination, 1958, for the book of poems A Beginning
Autumn Choice of the Poetry Book Society for Poems (1960) ..
