Edwin Thumboo

Edwin Nadason Thumboo B.B.M. (born 22 November 1933) is a Singaporean poet and academic who is regarded as one of the pioneers of English literature in Singapore.

Edwin Thumboo, born in Singapore on 22 November 1933, was the eldest of eight children of a Tamil Indian schoolteacher and a Teochew-Peranakan Chinese housewife from a Singaporean merchant family.

He and his siblings grew up speaking English and Teochew.

The family was financially comfortable; their home in Mandai was the only one in the neighbourhood with electricity.

Because of his mixed parentage, as a child he was sometimes called names and marginalized.

This was said to have fostered determination and self-respect in him.

He completed his primary education at Pasir Panjang Primary School in 1940.

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942–1945), he helped his family by selling cakes, tending goats, and working as a salesboy.

Following the war, he studied at Monk's Hill Secondary School (finishing there in 1946) and Victoria School (1948).

It was at the latter place that he began writing poetry at the age of 17 years, encouraged by the senior English master Shamus Frazer.

The seventh issue of Fajar which appeared in May 1954 contained an editorial entitled "Aggression in Asia" which advocated independence from the United Kingdom.

Three days later, Chinese middle school students clashed with the police.

As a result, after two weeks Thumboo was arrested by the British colonial government together with seven other students and put on trial for sedition.

Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was the Club's legal adviser and a Fajar subscriber, arranged for British Queen's Counsel D. N. Pritt to act in their defence, with Lee himself as junior counsel.

The students were acquitted of the charge by District Judge F. A. Chua.

Thumboo graduated in English from the University of Malaya in 1956.

Although he applied for a position at the university, he was rejected as few locals held academic posts at that time.

His own collections of poetry include Rib of Earth (1956), Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993).

Thumboo considers Frazer his spiritual father, and later dedicated Rib of Earth (1956), his first collection of poetry published while an undergraduate, to him.

At this time, Thumboo was also a member of the Youth Poetry Circle, which counted among its members other early literary pioneers of Singapore such as Goh Sin Tub and Lim Thean Soo.

Thumboo majored in English literature and history at the University of Malaya.

As a freshman, he was a member of the editorial board of Fajar (Dawn in Malay), a radical leftist journal published by the University Socialist Club.

Thumboo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with honours (B.A. (Hons.)) in English from the University of Malaya in 1956.

Hoping to teach and pursue a further degree, he applied for a position at the university but was rejected as few locals held academic posts at that time.

He therefore entered the civil service, working for the Income Tax Department (1957–1961), Central Provident Fund Board (1961–1965), and the Singapore Telephone Board (1965–1966) where he was an assistant secretary.

He therefore worked in the civil service for about nine years before finally joining the university, then renamed the University of Singapore, in 1966 following Singapore's independence.

In 1966, the year following Singapore's independence, he joined the University of Singapore as an assistant lecturer.

He received a Ph.D. from the university in 1970.

Conducting doctoral research into African poetry in English, he received his Ph.D. from the university in 1970.

Thumboo rose to the position of full professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, heading the department between 1977 and 1993.

He became a full professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, heading the department between 1977 and 1993.

Thumboo has won the National Book Development Council of Singapore Book Awards for Poetry three times, in 1978, 1980 and 1994.

He has also received the inaugural S.E.A. Write Award (1979), the first Cultural Medallion for Literature (1979), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Cultural and Communication Award (Literature) (1987), and the Raja Rao Award (2002).

After the merger of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University in 1980 to form the National University of Singapore (NUS), he was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from 1980 to 1991, NUS's longest-serving dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

He was conferred a Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Star) in 1981 with an additional Bar in 1991, and the Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Services Medal) in 2006.

Thumboo was the first Chairman and Director of the university's Centre for the Arts from 1993 to 2005, and continues to be associated with the university as an emeritus professor, a position he has held since retiring from full-time teaching in September 1997.

Thumboo's poetry is inspired by myth and history, and he is often dubbed Singapore's unofficial poet laureate because of his poems with nationalistic themes.

A pioneer of local English literature, he compiled and edited some of the first anthologies of English poetry and fiction from Singapore and Malaysia.

His latest anthology Still Travelling, consisting of almost 50 poems, was published in 2008.

He conceived the first National Poetry Festival for Singapore in 2015.