Patrick Roland Cullinan spent much of his life writing verse. He was born in Pretoria in 1932 and was educated in Johannesburg and, in England, at Charterhouse and Oxford University, where he read Italian and Russian before returning to South Africa. He farmed, sawmilled and published. With Lionel Abrahams, he founded the literary journal The Bloody Horse and the Bateleur Press, both of which testify to his dedication to the promotion of other poets of merit. He lectured in the English Department of the University of the Western Cape from 1982 to 1992 before retiring. Among the prizes he was awarded are the Olive Schreiner Prize, three Pringle Awards, the Slug Award, the Sanlam Literary Award, a Cape Town Historical Society Merit Award and the title of Cavaliere was bestowed on him by the Italian government in 2003 for his Montale translations. He lived in Cape Town and is survived by his wife Diane and daughters Caroline and Mary-Anne, son Matthew and eight grandchildren.  

Cullinan's published work includes:

Poetry  

The Horizon Forty Miles Away (1973)

Today Is Not Different (1978)

The White Hail In The Orchard (1984)

I Sing Where I Stand - Versions from the Afrikaans of Phil du Plessis: Poësie 1982-1984 (1985)

Selected Poems 1961-1991 (1991)

Transformations (1999)

The White Hail In The Orchard (containing loose translations from the Italian poetry of Eugenio Montale) (2003) 

Compilations

Lionel Abrahams: a reader (1988)

Biography

Robert Jacob Gordon 1743-1795: The Man and His Travels at the Cape (1992)

Novels

Matrix (2002)

Imaginative Trespasser: Letters from Bessie Head to Patrick and Wendy Cullinan 1986-1977 (2005)

Selected writings

Dante in Africa (edited with Stephen Watson) (2005)