P.J. Kavanagh

Patrick J. Kavanagh (born 6 January 1931) is an English poet, lecturer, actor and broadcaster. His father was the ITMA scriptwriter, Ted Kavanagh. He fought in the Korean War, being evacuated as result of his injuries. In 1966, his memoir The Perfect Stranger, based on his tragically brief marriage to Sally Phillips, the daughter of novelist Rosamund Lehmann won the Richard Hillary Prize. He has written four novels for adults and two for children. His first, A Song and Dance, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1968. He was a columnist for The Spectator from 1983 to 1996 and then for The Times Literary Supplement until 2002. In 1992 his Collected Poems were published and in the same year he was given the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. In addition he has written a travel autobiography, Finding Connections, a literary companion, Voices in Ireland and has edited The Oxford Book of Short Poems (1985), The Essential G. K. Chesterton and The Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney. He lives in Gloucestershire.