Writer, columnist and long-time campaigner for left and progressive causes, Mike Marqusee, died on Wednesday in London after a long battle with cancer. He was 61.
Mr. Marqusee’s death was formally announced on his Facebook wall by his partner Liz Davies and his four siblings.
“Mike Marqusee, my partner and our brother, died peacefully on 13 January 2015, aged 61. He was an inspiration to all of us, and to those who met him, or knew him through his writing. He had been ill with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer, since 2007. He received extraordinary care from the NHS, and, latterly, from St Joseph's Hospice,” the message said.
In his 2014 book ‘The Price of Experience: Writings on Living with Cancer (2014)’, Mr. Marqusee used his personal experiences as a consumer of the National Health Service to make a strong case for strengthening state subsidised medical care.
Although his canvas was diverse – sport, biography, race and class, culture, music and poetry – it was his insightful commentary on the game of cricket and its social milieu that Mr. Marqusee will be most remembered for -- especially in India. He contributed to a wide range of Indian publications including The Hindu and Frontline.
Mr. Marqusee was born in New York in 1953 and moved to Britain in 1971. He started as an active member of the Labour Party, editing Labour Briefing for many years. In 1995 he set up Hit Racism for Six, a campaign to rid cricket of racism. He was also one of the founding members of Stop the War Coalition and Iraq Occupation Focus, and an activist for the Palestinian cause.
In 2005, he was named an Honorary Faculty Fellow by the University of Brighton in recognition of his “contribution to the development of a critically-based form of journalistic scholarship in the social, cultural and political nature of contemporary global sport.”
His funeral will take place in the week starting 19 January, and there will be a memorial event in a few months' time, according to the statement by the family, which also called for contributions to Medical Aid for Palestinians (www.map-uk.org), a cause close to his heart.
