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Alun Lewis (1915-1944), the remarkable poet and story writer, died, aged 28, in Burma during the Second World War. Some critics see him as the last of the great Romantic poets... Early in 1940, despite his pacifist inclinations he enlisted and, after long periods of training, joined the war in India.

Becoming a soldier galvanised Lewis’s writing. By 1944 he had written two collections of poems and one of short stories, all published to considerable acclaim. Firmly established with Keith Douglas as the leading writer of the Second World War, Lewis’s death in an accident while on active service was huge loss to English literature.

Born and brought up near Aberdare in South Wales, the son of teachers, Lewis read history at Aberystwyth and Manchester. Early in 1940, after a brief period teaching and despite his pacifist inclination, he enlisted in the Royal Engineers. In the following year he joined the South Wales Borderers and travelled to the war in India. Becoming a soldier had a stimulating effect on Lewis's writing: Raiders' Dawn, a collection of forty-seven poems, appeared in 1942 and early in 1943, The Last Inspection, a book of short stories, was published, both to considerable critical acclaim. In March 1944, Lewis died in an accident on active service in Burma. His second volume of poems, Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets, was published in 1945 and his Indian short stories, together with some letters, In The Green Tree (1948).