This memorial website was created in memory of Keith Botsford, who died in London on 19 August 2018, aged 90. His funeral took place in London on 19 September 2018, and his ashes will be buried in the Brompton Cemetery in that city.
Keith left eight children and 16 grandchildren. He was a novelist throughout his life, but spent a significant period as a sports and food writer for newspapers in the United Kingdom (Sunday Times, Independent). He was also a university teacher, and had a considerable influence on students at Bard College, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Texas and Boston University (from which he retired as Emeritus Professor in 2006).
Donations: We have made arrangements with the Society of Authors to receive donations to its Authors Contingency Fund, which helps writers in need of emergency funds:
Go to https://www.cafonline.org/system/charity-search-results
Keith Botsford was a brilliant professor (Bard College, 1955), and a tireless attendant to the literary arts.
Professor Keith Botsford was an excellent professor who demanded only the best from his students. He taught me many things, but I remember his admonition: “take your reader by the hand and you can lead him anywhere.”
Godspeed
My favorite professor I had at Boston University. (See “stories” for a bit more).
Keith and Saul Bellow published my first piece of fiction in News From the Republic of Letters, and then Keith arranged for a collection of stories of mine with the Toby Press. I was very grateful for that first support. Keith was eager to support new writers and to share his wisdom with them. Over the years, I would see Chris Walsh, and I always asked about Keith. With deep thanks.
I always thought Keith to be as immortal as one of those weathered old patriarch statues you see in parks on the east coast, When I last saw him, then in his eighties, he was still striding along bolt upright in a three piece suit and battered hat. A great teacher, a kind man.
