Vol 4 No 1 2010
Memorial Tribute
It is with great sadness that we note the passing of author Kuldip Gill on
Sunday, May 10, 2009. Gill was a contributor to the 2004 Mansfield collection Red
Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (eds Rishma Dunlop
and Priscila Uppal).Gill had recently authored Valley Sutra, a collection
of poetry published by Caitlin Press in fall 2009.
Kuldip Gill was an active member of the British Columbia writing community.
Remembered as a gracious and elegant woman with a passionate exuberance for
life, Kuldip Gill died May 10 in Abbotsford at the age of 75.
Kuldip Gill, Ph.D., was born in Faridkot District, Punjab India in 1934. She
immigrated to Canada at the age of five and then attended school in the Fraser
Valley. Gill worked in the forestry and mining industries for twenty years
and then received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in social anthropology
from the University of British Columbia. She also received an MFA in Theatre,
Film and Creative Writing from UBC and was the recipient of the Norman Rothstein
Memorial Scholarship at UBC in recognition of scholarly achievement.
In 2005, The University College of the Fraser Valley bestowed Gill with an
honorary doctor of letters (D.Litt). Gill taught at UBC, Simon Fraser University,
the Open Learning Agency and the University of the Fraser Valley. She served
as the president of the Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of BC, and spent
time on the boards of the Vancouver YWCA and the Vancouver Chief Constable's
Diversity Advisory Committee.
Gill's first book, Dharma Rasa (Nightwood Editions, 1999), intertwined
English and Punjabi, life in Canada and life in India, past and present, myth
and imagination. It won a BC 2000 Book Award and received much acclaim. Gill
also wrote short fiction, non-fiction and reviews of poetry and fiction, and
served on the editorial board of Prism International and the advisory
council of Event.
Friends and colleagues speak of her talents and her generosity in sharing her
time to support others. She is remembered for her grace, generosity, compassion,
and activism. She was beloved to her students and a mentor to many young writers.
She will be missed.
We include in this issue of Studio two poems from the Red Silk anthology
by Kuldip. The last line of “Four O’Clock Tea at Harrison Springs Hotel” inspired
the title of the editors’ introductory essay for Red Silk, “Travelers,
like us.” The second poem, “Almost a Glosa, for Jim,” was written for her husband
of 44 years, Jim McIntosh.
Kuldip Gill