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Thumboo Edwin 1933 - 0 (-1933)

I have sailed many waters, Skirted islands of fire,


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Ulysses by

the Merlion




Edwin Nadason Thumboo is a poet and academic from Singapore, he is considered one of the pioneers of English literature in his country.

Born in Singapore on November 22, 1933, he was the eldest of eight children of a Tamil teacher. His mother was of Chinese descent from a Singaporean merchant family, and Edwin, because of his mixed ancestry, lived as a child in marginalization, which filled him with stubbornness and determination to achieve his goals.

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942–1945), he helped his family by selling cakes, caring for goats and working as a salesman. After the war, he completed his schooling and from the age of 17 he began to write poems. In 1956 he received a degree in English from the University of Malaya. Although he applied for a position at the university there, he was rejected as few locals held academic positions at the time. As a result, he worked in public administration for about nine years before finally joining the university, which in 1966 was renamed as University of Singapore after Singapore's independence. He received a Ph.D. from the same university in 1970 and became a full professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, head of the department between 1977 and 1993. He was the first President and Director of the University Arts Center from 1993 to 2005 and continues to be associated with the university as Honorary Professor, a position he has held since retiring from full-time teaching in September 1997.

Thumboo's poetry is inspired by myth and history; he is a pioneer of local English literature, he wrote and edited some of the first anthologies of English poetry and fiction from Singapore and Malaysia. His most important collections of poetry are Rib of Earth (1956), Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993). His latest anthology "A Gathering of Themes" was released in 2018. He has won the National Book Development Council of Singapore Book Awards for Poetry three times, in 1978, 1980 and 1994.