Wright, Anthony Colin

A. Colin Wright was born in Chelmsford, County of Essex, England in 1938 and became a Canadian citizen in 1971. Professor Wright was educated at Cambridge University, Pembroke College, in England, receiving a B.A. in 1961 and a M.A. in 1965. In 1986 he received a PhD, also from Cambridge, in Russian Language and Literature. Anthony Colin Wright was appointed to the faculty of Queen's University as a professor in the Department of Russian Language and Literature in 1964. Previously he was employed at the British College in Riggio Colabria in Italy, and at the Bell School of Languages in Cambridge, England. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Linguistics until 1982, and was also active in the Canadian Association of Slavists, for which he served as President from 1975 to 1976.
A writer and speaker on Russian literature and art, A. Colin Wright's major research interest was the Russian author and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov, on whom he wrote the book Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations (1978). In addition to this seminal work he wrote numerous articles on Bulgakov and other Russian literati as well as on aspects of Russian painting. Wright taught several courses on the Russian language during his tenure at Queen's and was an advocate for the teaching of Russian in Secondary Schools. He retired from Queen's in 1999. A. Colin Wright was also a prolific creative writer, producing several (unpublished) novels, and several (published) short stories and novella. He has written a number of plays, received awards for some of his work, and published articles on his travels abroad. Wright passed away on September 15 2023.