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Wales has lost a “major cultural and literary figure” following the death of multi-award winning Swansea poet, editor, journalist and broadcaster Nigel Jenkins, Dylan Thomas prize chairman Peter Stead said today.

Jenkins, 64, who lived in Mumbles, died early this morning after a brief battle against pancreatic cancer at Swansea’s Ty Olwen hospice.

He was brought up on a farm on the former Kilvrough estate in Gower and published several collections of poetry, including Song and Dance (1981), Practical Dreams (1983), Acts of Union: Selected Poems (1990), Ambush (1998) and Hotel Gwales (2006).

His collection of haiku and senryu, Blue (2002), was the first haiku collection ever to appear from a Welsh publisher, his second haiku collection, O For a Gun, was published in 2007.

He won the Arts Council of Wales 1996 Book of the Year prize with his travel book Gwalia in Khasia (1995) and published a selection of his essays and articles as Footsore on the Frontier (2001). He was co-editor of The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales, published by the University of Wales Press in 2008.

He was also the author of Real Swansea, (Seren Books, 2008) a personal account of the modern city, and Gower, (Gomer, 2009) and Real Swansea 2 (Seren 2012).

An associate professor at Swansea University, he was the Co-Director of the university English department’s creative writing programme.

The vice-chancellor Professor Richard Davies said: “Nigel’s commanding presence was felt in the University far beyond his own department. For example, he wrote a graduation day celebration poem which has become an integral part of our graduation ceremonies. When he read the poem himself, it became a riveting drama.”

The novelist Professor Stevie Davies, co-founder of the Swansea Creative Writing MA, described Nigel Jenkins as “an inspirational teacher, an outstanding writer and a true friend to authors, poets, dramatists and artists of all kinds throughout and beyond Wales.

“He was much loved by staff and students present and past, and we shall miss him greatly.”

Broadcaster, historian and writer Peter Stead said after learning of his death today: “Wales and Swansea has lost a major cultural and literary figure in Nigel Jenkins.

“He was born on Gower and had deep roots in Swansea as evidenced in his lively Real Swansea books.

“I was on the panel when Nigel won Arts Council Book of the Year prize for his book about his travels in India...he was a wonderful writer and I thoroughly enjoyed his travel writing.

“It’s terribly ironic that in DT100 when the world is celebrating the birth of a Swansea poet, right at the outset of the year we are having to come to terms with the loss of one of our best and most influential local writers.

“He was a great, inspirational figure for other writers, a real character and he will be hugely missed. It’s a sad day for Swansea.”

Former mayor of Swansea and councillor for Mawr in the Swansea Valley, Ioan Richard said: “I had known Nigel for about forty years following on from an evening of Poems and Pints at the Queens Hotel, Swansea, where he was then reading with Chris O’Neill.

“Discovering Nigel was like chancing upon a Curlew’s secret nest, as his writing was like a fresh and rare egg shining its colours on a new Gower morning.

“He progressed to become a great master of the written craft and his loss is a great loss for Swansea and the wider literary world.”