A Mercer University English professor and award-winning poet has died after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.
University spokesman Kyle Sears confirmed the death of faculty member Anya Silver Monday afternoon.
Silver was born in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and completed her undergrad at Haverford College before teaching for a year in Mississippi and working at the National Geographic Society Library.
She then earned her PhD in English literature from Emory University in Atlanta and began teaching at Mercer in 2000.
She was diagnosed with a very rare form of breast cancer in 2004 and was in remission until 2010 when the cancer returned, but she said it would not stop her from doing what she loved.
Silver authored four books of poetry, but her second – 2014’s I Watched You Disappear – focused on her battle with cancer while pregnant.
Silver was named Georgia Author of the Year – Poetry in 2015 for that book and she was most recently named a Guggenheim Fellow for Poetry in 2018.
Please join us in offering condolences to Silver’s family, friends and colleagues.