Leslie Norris

George Leslie Norris (21 May 1921 – 6 April 2006), was a prize-winning Welsh poet and short story writer. He taught at academic institutions in Britain and the United States, including Brigham Young University. Norris is considered one of the most important Welsh writers of the post-war period, and his literary publications have won many prizes.

Early life George Leslie Norris was born on 21 May 1921 in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. His parents were George and Mary Jane Norris. Leslie had two younger brothers, Eric and Gordon. His father George worked as a miner, but after First World War became a milkman because of his declining health. Leslie grew up in Wales during the Great Depression. He enjoyed reading books and playing sports as a kid. He secured a job as a lecturer in 1958 at Bognor Regis College of Education

Literary work Norris published his first poem in 1938 and by 1943, he published his first book of poetry. His career as a poet began to take off when his first collection Finding Gold was published in 1967. By 1980 Norris published three volumes in the Phoenix Living Poets. His publication Ransoms had won the Poetry Society's Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize in 1970. In 1989 he published a translation of Sonnets to Orpheus with another professor at BYU. He is also an honorary Doctor of Letters of the University of Glamorgan, and honorary Doctor of Humane Letters of BYU. Leslie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Welsh Academy.

Leslie died on 6 April 2006 in Provo, Utah, United States.