Born in 1924 into the largest Jewish community in India, the Bene Israel, Ezekiel received his primary education at a Roman Catholic school, which contributed to his colonial upbringing. He went on to earn both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature from Wilson College. In November 1948, he moved to London, where he spent four years studying philosophy at Birkbeck College and published his first collection, A Time to Change, in 1952.

Upon his return to India, he was offered a position as sub-editor at The Illustrated Weekly of India. Over the course of his career, he worked on numerous other publications, including Poetry India, Quest, Imprint, and The Indian P.E.N. Ezekiel held a variety of jobs—playwright, gallery manager, actor, copywriter, factory manager, broadcaster, and social commentator. In 1961, he followed in his parents' footsteps and became a lecturer and head of the English Department at Mithibai College. He later taught at the University of Bombay and served as a visiting professor at the University of Leeds, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Chicago.

Ezekiel contributed to several conferences and lecture tours and gave frequent interviews. He also translated Marathi poetry and continued to mentor emerging poets, including Dom Moraes. His poetry collections include A Time to Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), and The Exact Name (1965), some of which were self-published due to the limited interest in Indian English poetry within the contemporary publishing industry.

Ezekiel’s writing was influenced by T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as by England’s post-war literary movement. His poetry ranges between tight, metrical structure and free verse, characterised by a distinct, ironic, and humorous voice. Following the traditions of modernist poetry, Ezekiel sought to explore identity and subjectivity. His poems often aim to scrutinise, analyse, and understand their subjects through natural imagery, shifting perspectives, and odd phenomena that evoke a quizzical enquiry into rural, spiritual, and superstitious realities. As a member of the Jewish minority in India, Ezekiel was distanced from the mainstream cultural milieu, and this sense of liminality enriched the complex imagery and philosophical depth that resonate throughout his poetic lines.