My brother, Sebastian Black, who has died aged 77, rejected what he regarded as a class-ridden, public-school-ruled England and arrived in New Zealand in 1967 via the French Foreign Legion to become a lecturer in English literature at Auckland University.
Born in Leeds, the son of George Black, an eye surgeon, and his Cuban-American wife, Stella Harding, Sebastian was educated at Rugby school and New College, Oxford. He walked out of Oxford aged 20, fled to France, and in a state of emotional turmoil signed up for five years in the Foreign Legion at the height of the Algerian war. Our mother went out alone to the war zone to find him. Her bravery, born out of sheer love, made a huge impact on Sebastian and gave him the confidence to return to England and continue his studies at Leeds University.
Aware that he had been on the wrong side in the anti-colonialist war and influenced by the Marxist Arnold Kettle at Leeds University, Sebastian developed his ideas about the links between literature and politics and fought to establish New Zealand’s first course in post-colonial fiction at Auckland. He was politically active in New Zealand against the Vietnam war and the presence of American nuclear ships, and in 1981 during the Springboks’ tour was arrested when the Hamilton game was disrupted by anti-apartheid protesters.
Among his students, he was renowned for his tall physique, long, flowing beard, bright shirts and theatrical presentations. He once emerged from a dustbin at the start of a lecture on Samuel Beckett. Passionate about the theatre, on visits to England he gorged himself, often seeing five plays in a week.
Sebastian lived a happy and fulfilled life in his adopted country with his partner of more than 40 years, Judith Binney, a historian and distinguished writer about Maori history, who died in 2011. He may have spurned his Englishness but you could not entirely remove the Yorkshire from him. He loved Yorkshire cricket, and visits to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Hepworth Gallery at Wakefield, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Yorkshire coast.
He is survived by his sister, Caroline, brother, Edward, and me.
