38 years after his death, a daughter's ode to her dad

A book on lyric poetry’ is published nearly four decades after the author left the manuscript to his daughter

Nearly 38 years after Professor Frank D’Souza, the first head of the department of English at Siddharth College, Mumbai, left a manuscript on ‘lyric poetry’, his daughter Dr Daphne D’Souza Pillai has published the book, fulfilling a promise that she had made to her father at his deathbed.

D’Souza, a co-founder of the People’s Education Society (PES), which Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar established, left St Xavier’s College where he was a lecturer, after the Father of the Indian Constitution invited him in 1946 to set up the English section at Siddharth College, where he worked at till 1981. The book ‘Lyric Poetry: Origin, Nature and Characteristics’ was released last month. Pillai, chairperson of the Pillai Group of Institutions, describes the book as a ‘labour of love' from a daughter.