Eli Mandel was a Canadian poet, anthologist, professor, and literary critic. He was born into a Russian-Jewish family and grew up on the Prairies during the Depression. After serving in the army during the Second World War, he earned a BA (1949) and MA (1950) from the University of Saskatchewan and a PhD from the University of Toronto (1957). He authored nine volumes of poetry, edited numerous anthologies, and published two volumes of literary essays, Another Time (1977) and The Family Romance (1986). His first collection was published alongside work by Gael Turnbull and Phyllis Webb in Trio in 1954.