Douglas Dunn was born in Scotland in 1942. Graduating with an English degree from Hull University in 1969. Dunn has since received three honorary doctorates, two Literature doctorates from the University of Hull and the University of St Andrews, and a Law doctorate from the University of Dundee.
Dunn published his first collection of poetry in the same year of his graduation from Hull, 1969. After his wife's premature death from cancer in 1981, Dunn's collection 'Elegies', written in response to her death, garnered critical acclaim and was awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
Appointed Professor of English Literature at the University of St Andrews in the early 1990s, Dunn continued to write whilst working. A writer of poignant and personal poetry tackling love and old age, in more recent collections of verse Dunn has touched on pressing social issues, such as the European refugee crisis and the Scottish independence referendum.
Having won various literary prizes throughout his career, including the Somerset Maugham Award and the Cholmondeley Award, Dunn joined the ranks of the foremost poets in the English language when he was awarded the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 2013. With his most recent book of poetry published in 2017, there seems little doubt that Dunn remains a prominent figure in the world of Anglophone poetry.
