A much-loved scholar and soldier was honoured as part of the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival yesterday.
Dunedin Writers Walk Advisory Group convener Tony Eyre spoke at the unveiling of a plaque for Dan Davin in the writers walk, below the Robbie Burns statue.
Mr Eyre said the scholar, publisher, writer, soldier and war historian deserved the recognition.
''Dan should have been here years ago.''
The plaque was funded by Davin's friends, family and supporters and the Alexander McMillan Trust, the Otago University Press, and University of Otago english department and the Dan Davin Literary Foundation.
In the Athenaeum Library after the unveiling, writers and academics talked about being mentored by Davin and his legendary hospitality.
''Dan was this wonderful guy who took them under his wing. He was a much-loved man,'' Mr Eyre said.
Davin's daughter, Dr Anna Davin (75), travelled from England for the unveiling.
Her father's work about her parents' Dunedin days were her favourite.
''I've reread some of it recently, particularly the novel Not here, not now which is about him and my mother's student days in Dunedin,'' Dr Davin said.
''... the writing I like best draws on his Southland childhood and the Dunedin years - it's more particularly him - nobody else could have written it,'' she said.
Dan Davin
• Born in Invercargill in 1913.
• Completed a first-class honours degree in English at the University of Otago in 1934.
• Won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford and gained a first-class honours degree in Latin.
• In Oxford, married fellow student Winnie Gonley in 1939.
• On the outbreak of war, joined the British Army and served in Greece and North Africa and was wounded in Crete.
• After the war, worked at Oxford University Press and wrote several novels, short stories and the official New Zealand history of the Battle of Crete.
• Awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Otago in 1984.
• Died in his Oxford home in 1990.
