[1] He spent his childhood in Canada, Greece, and Washington, D.C., before earning his BA from Princeton University in 1949.
He retired from a long career of teaching English, creative writing, and Hellenic studies at Princeton University in 1994.
[1] His fiction and non-fiction are often set in Greece, where he spent part of each year, but also in Europe and the Balkans, where he has frequently traveled, and in Thailand and Washington, D.C..
He lived with his wife Mary Stathato-Kyris (married in 1951) in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1954 until her death in 2012.
[1][3] Keeley died from complications of a blood clot at his home in Princeton, New Jersey on February 23, 2022, at the age of 94.