Eugene Benson

Eugene Benson (born 1928) is a professor of English and a prolific writer, novelist, playwright and librettist.

Born in Northern Ireland, Benson obtained a master's degree from the University of Western Ontario and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

Benson is the librettist of five operatic works: Heloise and Abelard (performed by the Canadian Opera Company); Everyman (performed by the Stratford Festival); Psycho Red (presented by The Guelph Spring Festival), music by Charles Wilson. The latter two operas were broadcast by the CBC. His operetta Earnest, the Importance of Being, music by Victor Davies, was premiered in 2008 by Toronto Operetta Theatre. The Auction: A Folk Opera (music by John Burge) was premiered by Westben Arts Festival Theatre in 2012.

Benson’s scholarly publications include J.M. Synge (1982); English-Canadian Theatre (1987), The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre (1987); the Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (1994, 2nd ed. 2005)—the latter three books with L.W. Conolly—and The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (1997, second edition, with William Toye). He edited the anthology Encounter: Canadian Drama in Four Media (1973) and the scholarly journal Canadian Drama/L’Art dramatique canadien between 1980 and 1990.

Administrative Director and Budget Officer of the Guelph Spring Festival for many years, Benson is a former Chair of The Writers Union of Canada (1983–84), and was Founding co-President (with Margaret Atwood) of the Canadian Centre, International PEN (1984–85), and Vice-President (1985–1990).

As an activist advancing the cause of writers, Benson served as president of PEN Canada (an association of writers formed to defend freedom of expression) in 1984 and, in 1983, as chairman of the Writers' Union of Canada—a position also once held by noted authors Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, June Callwood, Timothy Findley, Graeme Gibson, Susan Musgrave, Paul Quarrington and David Lewis Stein.

...
Wikipedia