Kieran Egan

Kieran Egan was born in Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland, and educated in England, receiving a BA in history. He then went to California to work with IBM Corp. as a consultant while beginning a PhD at Stanford University, which he completed at Cornell University in 1972. His first academic job was at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, where he remained till his recent retirement. His academic work dealt with innovative educational theory and detailed practical methods whereby implications of the theory can be applied in everyday classrooms. He focused on the nature and development of imagination, and argued for its centrality in learning and the construction of meaning. There have been about forty translations of his books into around twenty languages. He and his wife have three children and five grandchildren —all, of course, wonderful, and all the children produce books of various kinds. During his academic life he gave talks in most European countries, and throughout Asia, South America, and Australasia. He also writes poetry and has published in many Canadian, British, Irish, and USA magazines. He has an interest in Japanese-style gardens, and built one at the rear of his house, which resulted in a book, Building My Zen Garden, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), and also a TV program in the Recreating Eden series. He was an athlete when younger—quite good at long-jump and triple-jump—but after four operations, he now has metal screws in his knees. He lives in Vancouver, BC.