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Mahadai Das, a Guyanese poet and activist, died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados shortly before midnight on Thursday, April 3, 2003.
"I want to be a poetess for my people," Das once wrote.The oldest of ten children, she wrote from the agony and treachery of experience. A former Ms. Dewali (1971) beauty queen, Das studied at the University of Guyana and the University of the West Indies. She received a B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University in New York and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, and was progressing toward a Ph.D. in Chicago when emergency open-heart surgery curtailed her academic career in 1987.William Balan-Gaubert, a friend and colleague from Das' tenure at the University of Chicago, said it was ironic that someone with such a big heart had, of all things, heart trouble.
"We spent a lot of time talking about poetry and Caribbean literature," he said. "I'm very sad to hear of her passing."While studying...