Lenrie Peters (Lenrie Wilfred Leopold Peters) Biography

Gambian poet, born in Bathurst, Gambia; he studied medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked as a surgeon at Northampton General Hospital before returning to Gambia in 1969 to practise at Banjul. Poems (1964), his first collection of verse, was followed by Satellites (1967) and Katchikali (1971); Selected Poems appeared in 1981. Much of his verse is notable for the urbane detachment with which it conducts its incisive meditations on a wide range of social and cultural themes, often with reference to contemporary conditions in Africa. Many of his metaphors and images are drawn from his experiences as a surgeon, which are also the basis for numerous moving poems about mortality. His novel The Second Round (1965) deals with the return of a doctor from Europe to his native Sierra Leone, where he is confronted by the unreality of his sense of belonging.