is born from Jewish-Lithuanian parents, studied in Cape Town and Cambridge and was professor of English langue and literature at the universities of West-Africa, Belfast, Sussex , Dijon, Parijs, Munic, Vienna, Ottawa, in India, en - finally – Tennessee (Vanderbilt University, where he retired in 1995). He wrote about his academic experience in Wandering Professor (1999). Lerner wrote three novels, nine collections of poems and many literary studies, such as The Literary Imagination: Essays on literature and society (1982), The Frontiers of Literature (1988) and Peace Studies: A Proposal (1995). He lives in Lewes (Sussex).