Judith Cowan, author, translator and professor, was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia. She received a BA in Modern Languages and Literature in 1965 and a MA in French Literature in 1969 from the University of Toronto. She received an MA in English Literature in 1970 from York University where she also lectured during the 1970-1971 academic year. She completed her PhD in Canadian comparative literature at l'Université de Sherbrooke in 1983. She has been a professor of Canadian, American and English Literature at l'Université de Quebec at Trois-Rivières since 1973. Cowan has translated numerous poems by Quebec writers for Ellipse magazine, a magazine that specializes in translations of Canadian literature. She has also translated whole works by authors such as Gérald Godin and Yves Préfontaine. She was awarded a Governor-General's Award in 2004 for "Mirabel," her translation of Pierre Nepveu's "Lignes aériennes." She has authored and published several collections of short stories, including "Gambler's Fallacy," and had several novels in progress. She passed away in her home in Trois-Rivières on 21 January 2025.
Domingos de Oliveira Marques was born 20 January 1949 in Ribeiro, Murtosa, the son of Francisco Marques and Augusta da Purificacao Oliveira.
His father was a cod fisher who had visited Saint John's Newfoundland while fishing the Grand Banks and Greenland. He attempted to immigrate in 1953 but was rejected due to his large family. The family eventually succeeded in 1957 when Marques' parents and siblings emigrated while he remained in Portugal in the seminary school at Aveiro. Domingos visited with his family in the summer of 1967. After graduating in 1968 and starting theological studies in Lisbon, Marques, having doubts about his future as a Catholic priest, returned to his family in Toronto in 1968. He worked in the tomato harvest in Chatham to repay his parents the cost of his travels. He worked several jobs, including as a journalist with "O Jornal Português" and in the Promotions Department of the Toronto Star before quitting to pursue a university degree full-time.
As a community activist, Marques was involved during the 1960s in the cultural and theatrical projects of the youth organization of the local St. Mary's Catholic parish and the cable 10 television program Luso-Brasileiro. In the 1970s he reported and edited the community newspaper "Comunidade." Marques taught Portuguese at the First Portuguese Community School at Harbord Collegiate Institute, as well as coordinating projects for the Portuguese Community from the West End YMCA. He edited and researched a book on the history Portuguese immigration to Canada with João Medeiros "Emigrantes Portugueses: 25 anos no Canadá", which was published in 1978.
In the late nineteen-seventies, Marques was self-employed and ran Marquis Printing and Publishing. In 1981, he joined the Workers Compensation Board as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, serving fifteen years in this role. In 1992 he published with Manuela Marujo "With hardened hands : a pictorial history of Portuguese immigration to Canada in the 1950s", a more official history of Portuguese Immigration to Canada.
A volunteer for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) and the Portuguese Interagency Network (PIN) in the 1980s, Marques was elected Trustee of the Separate School Board Ward 3-4 in 1991. He is married to Manuela Marujo.
Desmond George Neill (1924-2012) served as the second librarian of Massey College, University of Toronto, from October 1975 to 1990. He was a senior fellow of the college. A leading scholar in the field of bibliography and rare books, he also taught courses in the history of books and printing at the Faculty of Library Science (now Faculty of Information) and was a lecturer in the Department of English.
Neill was born in Oxford, England. He completed a D.Litt. at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1953, he married Sheila M. Pereira in Chelsea, Middlesex, and they had four children.
From 1969 to 1975, Neill was a senior research fellow at Balliol College, Oxford University, and worked as a librarian at the Bodleian Library. In 1975, at the invitation of the Master of Massey College, Robertson Davies, Neill came to Toronto to take up the post of librarian at Massey. He made important additions to the reference and Canadian literature collections, and to the bibliography holdings. He was a member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada and served on its executive, including a term as president.
Neill was a member of the Friends of the Library at Trinity College. In his retirement, he volunteered at Trinity’s annual book sale; starting in 1996, he focused his efforts on donations, looking for rare books for the sale and for the John W. Graham Library. In 2004, he received the University of Toronto’s Arbor Award for distinguished volunteer service.
Neill moved back to Oxford, where he died on 13 June 2012 at the age of 87. His funeral was held on 26 June at the Chapel of Balliol College.