Yusuf Kodwavwalla Dawood — who became famous courtesy of his Surgeon’s Diary newspaper column — has died in the United Kingdom, aged 94.

Besides his Sunday column — arguably one of the longest-running in Kenya at 38 years — Dr Dawood is the celebrated author of books such as The Price of Living, One Life Too Many and Water Under the Bridge.

Over the years, he had been putting together the articles in a quartet of books: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Off My Chest, Behind the Mask, The Last Word and Eye of the Storm, the last of which won him the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 2011. The prize, jointly administered by the Kenya Publishers Association and Text Book Centre is the most prestigious book award in Kenya.

The surgeon always teased that he had four wives — Marie (his spouse), surgery, writing and rotary. This inspired the title of his autobiography: Nothing But the Truth: The Story of a Surgeon with Four Wives.

In it, he wrote: “If age is not judged by years alone, but by the intensity of life — the life one has crowded into those years and not merely the years one has lived — then I can claim to have had a long and fascinating life.”

Breast guy

Dawood used to get material for his writing from his training and practice as a surgeon. His career journey, which started in 1961, was as colourful as his writing, spanning three continents; Asia, Europe and Africa. He had been a consultant surgeon at Agha Khan Hospital (after serving at the same hospital as a member of the board of directors from 1973 to 1978). Dawood was also a member of the board of directors at the African Medical and Research Foundation in Nairobi from 1976 to 1980.

Described by his peers as the “breast-guy” because he was a breast surgeon, the man with a diminutive frame dedicated his time and energies in breast cancer treatment, management and research for 60 years. And when he announced that he would retire his scalpel, it was met with gloom by patients that he had taken care of, running into generations.

As for his writing career, he hung his boots when he turned 90 after rheumatism made it difficult for him to write.

The celebrated surgeon was also a loyal Rotarian. His son, Jaan Yusuf Kodwavwalla, first sent a message with news of his father’s demise to The Rotary Club of Mombasa.

“My dad slipped away from us in the early hours of this morning, January 28. May his soul rest in peace,” he wrote.

At some point in the recent past, Dawood was the leader of all Rotary clubs in Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Born on September 13, 1928, in Bantwa (India), Dawood first came to Kenya in 1961 and launched his career as a surgeon at the Agha Khan Hospital. After training and competing in the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) in 1958, he successfully served four surgical periods at Maidenhead, Blacknotley and Banbury Hospitals and Drewsbury General Infirmary.

After living in Kenya for 57 years, in 2018 Dawood and his wife Marie left the country for retirement in the United Kingdom. Despite their love for Kenya, the ageing couple had to leave so that their children could take care of them in their sunset years.

It appears the celebrated surgeon had started thinking of life’s shortness in 2018 – the year he turned 90. In an interview, Dawood’s wife Marie said: “How he talks of death scares me. I start weeping because I am very emotional.”

Decades of working as a surgeon would make a surgeon think about how short life could be, and Dawood must have developed the desire to ensure everything was in its place before the last chapter in his life’s book was written.