T.Wignesan

Born in Kuala Krai, Malaysia. Up to his twenty-first year grew up in Singapore, Port Swettenham, Klang, Sungei Rengam, Kuala Lumpur, Madras and Seremban; then in London, Heidelberg, West Berlin, Madrid and Paris. Served as Research Fellow with the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), from 1973 to 1998. Lectured for the Commonwealth Institute, London, on South and Southeast Asia and taught courses in English, American, and Commonwealth literatures at the European Division of the University of Maryland and at the Sorbonne.At the moment, Professor of South Asian Area Studies, American Graduate School of International Relations & Diplomacy, Paris, France

Was a journalist with the Malay Mail & Malayan Times (Kuala Lumpur), and the Straits Times Press Group of Singapore (London Correspondent).

Education: Had four years of schooling at Batu Road School and the Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur. Inns of Court School of Law, London; Universities of Heidelberg and West Berlin (philosophy); Hispanic Studies in Madrid: Universidad Complutense, and Instituto de la Cultura Hispanica, and at the Université de Paris-VIII (Maitrise d’Enseignement d’Espagnol); obtained his higher doctoral degree in aesthetics from the Université de Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne (Doctorat d’Etat ès lettres et sciences humaines). Distinctions in both the master’s and doctoral degrees. Won the Extraordinary Prize in Hispanic Studies at Madrid University.

Publications include: Etude comparée des littératures nationales et/ou officielles de la Malaisie et de Singapour depuis 1940, 3 vols.(Université de Lille-III, 1988); Tracks of a Tramp: A first collection of poems. (Singapore-Kuala Lumpur, 1961); Bunga Emas: An Anthology of Contemporary Malaysian Literature: 1930-63. Ed. (London, 1964); Fire Readings: A Collection of Writings from the Shakespeare & Company Fire Benefit Readings, Co-ed. (Boston-Paris, 1991); Special Millennium 2000 Issue of the Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies (Chennai, India: Institute of Asian Studies), March 2000: Guest Editor; Journal of Comparative Poietics/Revue de Poïétique Comparée (Founder editor: Paris, 1989-). Contributed over a hundred articles and/or fictional pieces to a wide variety of popular and learned journals, and books, such as, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (Leeds University), Asia:A Handbook (London), The Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies: Special 2000 Number-March, Chennai-India, 2000 (IAS, Chennai, India), Buddhism in Tamil Nadu (Institute of Asian Studies, India, 2000), International Institute of Asian Studies Newsletter (Leiden University), Journal of Asian Studies (USA), Komparatistische Hefte (Bayreuth University), Yearbook of ASNLE (Essen University), Journal of Eelam Studies (London), Lanka: Studies in Lankan Culture (Uppsala University), Radical Poetics (London), Forum Academicum (Heidelberg University), Discus (Frankfurt University), Fire Readings (Paris-Boston), The Gombak Review (IIUM University, Kuala Lumpur), Malayan Times(Kuala Lumpur), Le Canard Laqué (Institute of Political Science, Paris), http://www.viweb.cjb.net/ (Victoria Institution literary archives), Editor of the on-line journal: The Asianists’ Asia – http://stateless.freehosting.net/menupage.htm for Collections of poems, articles, short stories, vignettes, novels, etc.

Check the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for other works.

Editorial board member of Le Canard Laqué ( Association Asie-Extrême, Institute of Political Science, Paris: 1989-91); editorial advisor and guest editor of the Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies (Chennai, India: 1998- ), and Guidepost (Spain: 1967).

Association memberships:American Comparative Literature Association (1992>); (American) Association for Asian Studies (1991>); American Society for Aesthetics (2003>); Mid-West Political Science Association, U.S.A. (2005>).

(Formerly)Royal Asiatic Society for Great Britain & Ireland (1964>); Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, Netherlands (1975>); European Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies (1989>); Association for the Study of New Literatures in English, Germany (1991>); Center for Asian Studies-Asian Research Service, Hong Kong-Canada (1991>)

Founder-Director: Research Centre for Comparative Poietics, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France (1988-1994); Founder-Director: Research Centre for Asian Studies, Paris, France (2000>).

Languages: Tamil (mother tongue), Malay, English, Spanish, German, French, and some Chinese.

A Stateless Person since 1969 (his only passport was confiscated by the British Embassy in Madrid in November 1967). Cf. Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World; Who’s Who in EACLALS (European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) 1995; The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 1970, and CD ROM Best-Europe.

If you’ll excuse me, the above write-up is only the “bread-and-butter” curriculum vitae.; what follows is the real story:

My story is nothing more than an excruciatingly distended effort at trying to outwit authority of all sorts: not so triumphantly, I'm afraid, during the past few years. All governments, like all secret services/societies, are made up of - c’est l’évidence même - individuals. For some reason, a few individuals in the wrong places at the appropriate moments have managed to put the screws on me for nearly all my life, right from the day I broke off schooling at sixteen and began to fend for myself. The then Malaysian authorities illegally deprived me of my citizenship rights and sent me packing in 1962. The British authorities in cohorts with the independent colonial power confiscated my (only) passport in November 1967 in Madrid. For two years, I survived without proper identity papers, until I was forced to declare myself a Stateless Person in 1969. On the other hand, the Spanish authorities refused to provide me with a Travel Document. Until then, everything conspired to keep me from getting a degree, and therefore a proper job, in order to be able to do what I always wanted to do, and that is, (to) write. At last, when I was lucky enough to find myself a proper job in France, all hell was let loose. [See news-stories: "Sans Patrie Ni Asile" (Neither Country Nor Asylum), in daily: LE MONDE, Paris: December 16, 1972, p. 2, and "Non-assistance à personne en danger?" in weekly: "Nouvel Observateur", no. 681, November 28, 1977, p. 63. N.B.: Getting in touch with those mentioned in the stories might only elicit either a well-oiled "conspiracy of silence" or a "barrage of misinformation". ]. Twenty-five years later through hanging on by the skin of my teeth, I’m (now) retired with a pension. So, in the end, what really matters is to keep that flame flickering in quiet within you. That is something no authority can snuff out. And even a page of what you can reveal in the end should be more rewarding than all the armchair bookmaker leaves spewed in the comfort of one’s borrowed or unlived/unendured imagination!

The question is, Would I have wanted it any other way?

July 23, 2003, Paris, France