Peter Nazareth

Peter Nazareth (April 27, 1940 - May 22, 2026) was a British, African born, Goan literary critic and writer of fiction and drama.

He is known as one of the important figures in East African literature. He is also recognized for his work on African, Caribbean, African-American, and Goan literature. His mother's family was earlier based in Malaya-Malaysia-Singapore. He was educated at Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), where he received his BA in English Literature in 1962, and completed postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds in England.

While residing in Africa, he simultaneously served as senior finance officer in Idi Amin's finance ministry until 1973, when he accepted a fellowship at Yale University and emigrated to the United States from Uganda. He moved to Iowa later in 1973, after he was invited to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He lived there for 5 decades. He became a US citizen in 2009.

Nazareth died on May 22, 2026.

In academia

Nazareth was a professor of English and African-American World Studies at the University of Iowa, where he was also a consultant to the International Writing Program. Nazareth taught that university's course "Elvis as Anthology", which explores the deep mythological roots of Elvis Presley's roles in popular culture.

He taught and wrote about African, Caribbean, African-American, Goan, and other literatures. His publications include In the Trickster Tradition: The Novels of Andrew Salkey, Francis Ebejer, and Ishmael Reed (1994); Edwin Thumboo: Creating a Nation Through Poetry (2008); and the long essay "Elvis as Anthology" in Vernon Chadwick (ed.), In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Nazareth edited Critical Essays on Ngugi wa Thiong'o (2000) and Pivoting on the Point of Return: Modern Goan Literature (2010). His first novel, In a Brown Mantle (1972), has been taught at the University of Pretoria and by Ngugi wa Thiong’o at U.C. Irvine.

His literary criticisms often involved observations of the fate of diverse global economic and academic migrants, spanning the Asian, African and black American cultural histories. Nazareth has edited a special issue of the journal Callaloo on Goan literature, and an anthology of its literature, and has championed the work of Mozambique-born Goan writer Violet Dias Lannoy.

Family

He was married to Mary Nazareth for more than 60 years. They have two daughters Elvis -- Rewriting the World through Multicultural Movies.

Edited anthologies African Writing Today, special issue of Pacific Quarterly Moana, Hamilton, New Zealand: Outrigger Publishers, Vol. 6, No. 3/4, 1981. Goan Literature: A Modern Reader, issue of the Journal of South Asian Literature, East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1983. Critical Essays on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, New York: G.K. Hall, 2000. Uganda South Asians Exodus: Kololian Perspectives (co-edited), University of Toronto, 2002.