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Forwarded from the Writers Union of Canada</div>
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<div style="text-align: center; font-size: 11pt;">Eugene Benson1928–2026</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;"> The Writers’ Union of Canada is deeply saddened by</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-size: 11pt;">the death of Eugene Benson, who served as the Union’s Chair in 1983-84, and was a great friend and valued advisor to Union leadership and staff.</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;"> Eugene Benson was a playwright, editor, librettist, literary critic,</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">and novelist. Born in Northern Ireland in 1928, he obtained an MA from</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">the University of Western Ontario, and a PhD from the University of</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">Toronto, and for many years was a professor of English at the University</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-size: 11pt;">of Guelph where he met his wife and fellow University of Guelph scholar, Renate Niklaus Benson (1938-2018). He was founding co-President (with Margaret Atwood) of PEN Canada.</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;"> Benson’s active involvement in issues involving Canadian writing and</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">publishing never diminished, even into his 90s. In recent years, he</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-size: 11pt;">addressed both the Union’s membership and the Canada Council for the Arts through his AGM Motion concerning the possible renaming of the Governor General’s Awards for Literature. Referring to his own continued
writing after retirement (in a 2015 article on the University of Guelph website), Benson said “I can’t not do it.”</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;">The author of two novels, <i>The Bulls of Ronda </i>
and the political</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">satire <i>Power Game</i> (adapted for television as the film North of America),</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-size: 11pt;">Benson also had drama produced on the CBC. His scholarly work included a biography of Irish poet and playwright John Millington Synge, and the editing of
<i>The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre</i> and <i>The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature</i>. He also edited the magazine
<i>Canadian Drama</i> for a number of years. In 2019, Benson published his memoir, <i>The Symmetry of the Tyger</i>.</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;">Union staff and leadership extend our heartfelt condolences to the</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11pt;">Copyright © 2026 The Writers’ Union of Canada. All rights</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;">reserved.</div>
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