Peter Broome (died aged 81)
A full obituary, which appeared in The Guardian on 11 April 2018, can be found here.
Peter Broome was a gifted teacher, communicator and literary critic who specialised in modern French poetry. He was also a poet and collaborated with a number of French contemporaries.
Peter was born in Melton Mowbray and after a BA and a PhD in French at Nottingham University, in 1962 was appointed to a lectureship in French at Monash University in Australia.
He returned to the UK in 1966 to take up a post in the French department at Queen’s University Belfast, where he remained until his retirement, as a professor of French, in 2002.
For generations of students at Queen’s, Peter was a passionate and devoted teacher. Standing in class with a volume of French poetry as his only prompt, he would deliver inspirational lectures on Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rimbaud.
He was also admired by colleagues for his professionalism and loyalty – and for what one of them, in a preface to a collection of studies and poems in Peter’s honour published in 2005, called “his magnificent example over the years”.
Beyond university life, Peter and his wife, Di were keen ballroom dancers. He spoke of that pastime with the same zest and seriousness that he brought to his work as an academic and teacher.
On retirement he continued to publish extensively. He and Di moved to rural Burgundy for a number of years, living in what had been Frénaud’s home, before later returning to Britain.
He is survived by Di and by their two sons, Jeremy and Tim.
Back to list
Top of Page