Ken Goodwin was literary scholar and academic. He was a graduate of the University of Sydney, where he gained an MA and Dip Ed, and also Oxford University, where he completed his DPhil. He lectured in English at several Australian universities, including the University of Queensland, where he was for many years head of school. Upon his retirement he was appointed Honorary Professor of English at the University of Queensland. He was the founding Chair of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, and later Chair of the international body. As well as his writing on Australian literature he also published Understanding African Poetry (1982) and edited the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Post-Colonial Literatures (1994).
