Campbell, Roy (1901–1957)

South African poet. His poetry is noted for its technical mastery and exuberant metaphor, employed to satiric ends in his attack on the South African ‘way of life’ in The Wayzgoose (1928) and on English literary coteries in The Georgiad (1931). Among his most successful other works are the narrative poem ‘The Flaming Terrapin’ (1924), the collection Adamastor (1930), and his translations from Baudelaire, Lorca, and St John of the Cross.

Born in Durban, Campbell lived in France and Spain (where he became a bullfighter and was an outspoken supporter of Franco during the Spanish Civil War) and served with the Commonwealth forces in World War II, after which he lived in England before finally settling in Portugal. He recorded his flamboyant life in two autobiographies, Broken Record (1934) and Light in a Dark House (1951).