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Edwin Thumboo (b. 1933) | |
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Singaporean scholar, literary critic, and poet writing in English. Thumboo has often been described as the unofficial poet laureate of the Republic of Singapore. Central themes in his work are commitment and artistic integrity, and national identity and multicultural awareness. Nothing, nothing in my days Edwin Nadason Thumboo was born in Singapore. His father was a primary school teacher of Indian (Tamil) descent and mother of Chinese origin. Before English became Thumboo's main language, his mother tongue was Teochew. After graduating in 1957 from the University of Malaya, Thumboo worked as a civil servant, first in the Income Tax Department, and then in the Central Provident Fund Board. In 1966 Thumboo entered the National University of Singapore, newly formed after the city-state gained independence. He took up an assistant lectureship and completed his doctoral thesis on African poetry in English in 1970. During his visits in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda and Kebya, he met such leading figures of African literary world as Lenrie Peters, Kofie Awoonor, Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark, and Ngugi wa Thiongo. Thumboo concluded that where the writer under the colonial regime had no role to play, the writer in the new situation had certain responsibilities toward national objectives. Nine years later he was appointed professor in the Department of English Language and Literature. Between 1980 and 1991 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. In 1995, Thumboo was appointed Professorial Fellow and in 1997 he became an Emeritus Professor. Thumboo has also been a visiting professor and fellow at universities in the United States, UK, and Australia. Thumboo wrote his first poems in a period when poetry in English started to emerge. His acquaintances included the short story writer Goh Sin Tub, who ran a poetry circle for the magazine Youth, but the major influences on his work were Eliot, Yeats and Pound. Thumboo's first collection of poetry, Rib of Earth, was privately published in 1956. The book was dedicated to Shamus Frazer, Thumboo's teacher and Senior English Master at Victoria School. A dissenter against British colonial rule, Thumboo wrote in 'Steel': "How can others know my tongue-fire / Agony deprived of action?" Concerning the role of English language in Singapore Thumboo has said: "Taking the language increasingly on our terms was and is a pre-condition for creative freedom. It was their language; now it is one of ours." While Thumboo has singled out creativity in English as that which "best represents the Singaporean," John Kwan-Terry has seen in the poetry in English a "literature not of arrival but of retreat, not of achieved meaning but of questioning, and not of certainty, but of doubt, even despite itself". Thumboo has also published nursery rhymes and edited several anthologies of poetry from Singapore and Malaysia. Thumboo's work has had an important influence on other poets. From his earlier love poetry and exploration of the inner word Thumboo has increasingly turned his attention to cross-cultural themes, social concerns, and the question of national identity. In Literature and Liberation (1988) Thumboo listed five stages of freedoms which small nations have to go through – political, economic, cultural, psychological and linguistic. According to Thumboo, from these five Singapore had achived only the first two by that time. The title poem of Thumboo's Ulysses by the Merlion (1979), in which Homeric themes of wandering intertwine with the mythical icon for Singapore, has been put on a plaque at Merlion Park: "... But this lion of the sea / Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail, / Touched with power, insistent / On this brief promontory... Puzzles. . . ." Ulysses, a young Singaporean male, is a divided character: he is loyal to his homeland but his passion for traveling only takes him further away from his home. Critics quickly drew comparisons between the poet himself and the narrator, who "Met strange people singing / New myths; made myths myself." Soon after the publication of the collection Thumboo said that "I feel that a poet has a double responsibility. One is his responsibility to have a function within his society, but to remain a poet. It involves some sacrifices of inner voices." In Gods Can Die (1977) Thumboo revised poems and republished sections he liked. 'Walking My Baby Back Home' took its title from a song by Nat King Cole. Though Thumbo expresses his nostalgia for the earlier, simplier lifestyle of Singapore, feelings of loss are combined with a sense of confidence in the future of the nation: "The City is what we make it. / You and I. We are the City." Also in A Third Map (1993) Thumboo collected some of his earlier works. Thumboo's many awards include National Book Development Council of Singapore Award for poetry (1978, 1980, 1994), the Southeast Asia Write Award (1979), the Cultural Medallion for Literature in Singapore (1980), the Asean Cultural and Communication Award (Literature) in 1987, Public Service Star (BBM) in 1981 and 1991, and the Raja Rao Award in 2002. Thumboo is married to Yeo Swee Ching; they have two children. For further reading: 'Of New Covenants and Nationalisms: Christianity and The Poetry of Edwin Thumboo and Lee Tzu Pheng,' by R. B. H. Goh, in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 34; Part 2/3 (2003) 'Note of Resistance and Reconciliation in the Poetry of Edwin Thumboo,' by P.K. Singh, in The Literary Criterion, Vol. 37; Part 3/4 (2002); Ariels: Departures & Returns: Essays for Edwin Thumboo, edited by Tong Chee Kiong et al. (2001); Responsibility & Commitment: The Poetry of Edwin Thumboo by Ee T. Hong and Leong L. Geok (1997); English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore, ed. by J. Foley et al. (1988) Selected works:
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