LLOYD FERNANDO ( 1926-2008)

Literary Encyclopedia: Lloyd  Fernando


                              lloyd  fernando ( 1926 - 2008)
                               novelist, critic
                               born   1926 ;  died   2008.   Active  1946 - 2008 in malaysia,  south asia

                               article contributed by
                               mohammad quayum
                                international islamic, university malaysia


 L loyd Fernando  was born in Sri Lanka in 1926,  at the age of twelve,  he   migrated  to Singapore with his family.   His early migation  across the Indian Ocean had an enriching influence on Fernando,   the writer and scholar, as it was to plant the seeds of the transcultural,  diasporic  imagination in  him an impressionable age.   Life was moving along at a steady  pace , and Fernando continued his   schooling at St. Patrick' s  ,.  but the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1943 to 1945 dealt a severe blow ,  interrupting his formal schooling and, most tragically, costing his father's life in one of the Japanese bombing raids.   Following his father's death,  Fernando started working as a trishaw rider,  construction  labourer and apprentice mechanic,  to support himself and the family.   he also joined the Ceylon branch of the Indian National Army,  not impelled by any ideology but out of a sheer necessity for self-sustenance.

A fter  the war,  Fernando completed his Cambridge School Certificate and enbarked on a school career.   In 1955,  he intered the University of Singapore,  graduating in 1959 with double Honours in English and Philosophy..   In 1960, he joined the Unversity of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur as an assistant lecturer,  and reurned to the same post four years later,  having obtaining a Ph.D, in English from the University of Leeds , England.   In 1967,  he was elevated to Professor of Head of English at the University of Malaya, posts he held until 1979.

F ernando started   writing in the 1970  ' s,  rather late in his life,  but when Malaysia and Singapore were still nascent  nations.     Malaysian attained self-rule in 1957,  while Singapore, after joining the Federation of  Malaysia in 1963, owning to irrreconcilable political  diifferences,  eventually chose to become independent in 1965.   The turbulent experinces encountered by these two multi-ethnic and multicultural societies,  following independence,  and in the process of finding their national identity,  is what feeds and fuels Fernando ' s imagination in his writings.   Fernando says that,  after independence,  he was given the option of retaining Sri Lankan nationality or taking up Singapore citizenship;   he chose the latter because,  he explains,  " Ehnically,  I was ashamed and disgusted by the narrow- minded and selfish stand of the Sinhalese community and I chose society ... " This inclusivism,  rejection of political violence,  and  a humanist approach towards life and socirety that  sees every indivual and community as equal,  within and beyond a national boundary,  recur as the central theme in both his nobels   - Scorpion Orchid ( 1976)  and Gren is the Colour ( 1993) - and his only play, based on the first novel, Scorpion Orchid,  the Play ( 1998) .

Scorpion Orchid is set again the racial riots of Singapore in 1955- 56 .  The Scorpion is " a sm.



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 First published 12 September 2004; revised 19 May 2006

 Citation  : Quayum, Mohammad, ' Lloyd Fernando ",  The Literary Encyclopedia, 12 September 2004.
(hhtp: //www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1510. qccessed 6 march 2009)

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