Wednesday, December 10, 2014

i.m. Dinesh Allirajah

It is with great sadness that I'm announcing that Dinesh Allirajah, creative writing associate tutor at Edge Hill, died yesterday from complications following surgery.

Dinesh was a well-known writer in the North West (but particularly in Liverpool) having published many short stories, anthologies and poetry, some it jazz poetry. He worked with us at Edge Hill and also at UClan.

He'd worked for some years at Edge Hill and is much loved by his students and colleagues alike. Dinesh leaves behind two sons, 10 and 12, their mother and his partner Vicky.
I had just linked this blog to his, where he was wittily blogging about hospitalisation but also about 'Real Time Stories'.
More here. And here. And a video clip here. See his published work here.

As I blog this I am listening to a compilation of live Miles Davis tracks. A great jazz fan, and jazz poet, Dinesh might have liked that. Only Miles could make a track called 'What's New?' sound so appropriately sad. And bleak.

Pages (this blog) home page here.

Update

Dinesh's funeral took place on Monday 22 December at Springwood Crematorium, Springwood Avenue, Garston, Liverpool L25 7UN. It was a sombre but celebratory ceremony, ending with Martha Reeves singing Heatwave. An obituary has been published in The Guardian here.

FURTHER UPDATE: There was an evening event to celebrate the life and work of Dinesh Allarajah at the Bluecoat in Liverpool on 6th May 2015. See here.