Gwendolyn MacEwen - Life

Life

MacEwen was born in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother, Elsie, spent much of her life as a patient in mental health institutions. Her father, Alick, suffered from alcoholism. Gwendolyn MacEwen grew up in the High Park area of the city, and attended Western Technical-Commercial School.

Her first poem was published in The Canadian Forum when she was only 17, and she left school at 18 to pursue a writing career. By 18 she had written her first novel, Julian the Magician.

"She was small (5'4") and slight, with a round pale face, huge blue eyes usually rimmed in kohl (Egyptian eye shadow), and long dark straight hair."

Her first book of poetry, The Drunken Clock, was published in 1961. She married poet Milton Acorn, 19 years her senior, in 1962, although they divorced two years later.

She published over twenty books, in a variety of genres. She also wrote numerous radio docudramas for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), including a "much-admired radio drama", Terror and Erebus, in 1965.

With her second husband, Greek musician Niko Tsingos, MacEwen opened a Toronto coffeehouse, The Trojan Horse, in 1972. She and Tsingos translated some of the poetry of contemporary Greek writer Yiannis Ritsos (published in her 1981 book Trojan Women).

She taught herself to read Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and French, translated writers from each of those languages. In 1978 her translation of Euripides' drama The Trojan Women was first performed in Toronto.

She served as writer in residence at the University of Western Ontario in 1985, and the University of Toronto in 1986 and 1987.

MacEwen died in 1987, at the age of 46, of health problems related to alcoholism. She is buried in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery.