Shaun de Waal (pen name Michael Morain)’s Digital Archive

Shaun de Waal was born in 1958, in Durban, at Parklands Hospital – where he passed away in 2000, when 42 years old. In 1976 he went to school at Marist Brothers College. He was around 19 years old when he joined the army and then went overseas, to England, Europe, and America. He worked in a clerical position at the Community Development Housing Department of the Post Office and later on graduated from the University of Natal with a BA Degree in Education and Biblical Studies. He then obtained a Teachers Diploma from the Montessori Centre in London. In 1993 he started writing poetry and gained recognition in South Africa, receiving later on an international award in Washington for poetry published in America – which earned him a lifetime membership at the International Society of Poets based in Washington DC. Also a songwriter, Shaun was a lifetime member of the Songwriters Club of America. He lectured in Creative Writing part time for the Culture and Working Life Unit at the University of Natal.

Shaun de Waal is one of the founders of the Live Poets Society (LiPS) initiated by Ursula Cox. Together with Nise Malange, he co-edited the book “Poetry for Peace”, the aim of which was reconciliation of communities in South Africa. He also compiled “Radiance”: a collection of poems by Durban poets that was offered to Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her visit to Durban in 1999.

While Shaun toured the Americas in his late teens, he was involved for some time with the Rosicrucians and later on also with the Free Masons. However he was basically a freethinker. Brought up as a Catholic, his sister Charmaine remembers him as always kind and placid and very keen to be of help, but with a tendency to be a loner. When very young, he wanted to be a priest. Once he did share with her some vision, where someone dressed in white had come to visit him. In his writings he mentions, having ´met´ Saint Germain, and Victoria remembers that he spoke a lot about this ‘ascended master’, which he tells about in his book, ‘Dragon – “Shamballa Stories” ’.

One day Shaun phoned his sister and said, “Sis, are you sitting down? I have some news. I have cancer.” Victoria said she could almost see him saying this and giggling at the same time… Did he ever complain? We don’t think so. Peace to his soul.

As he wrote,

There is not parting

Souls have been touched

There is no fear, no death

One´s tears in going are sweet.

@Michael Morain

The Archive

The “Shaun de Waal Digital Archive” was made possible by Maria Victoria Pereira: the fellow poet to whom, in his will, Shaun left the copyrights of all his works. Below are links to PDF files of De Waal’s oeuvre, arranged in order of publication.