SOURCE: An interview in Pacific Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1982, pp. 93-101.

In the following interview, Thumboo considers his literary criticism, the relationship between oral tradition and written poetry, and the role of myth in Singapore.

[Nazareth]: You have been of the first generation of Singaporean poets, allowing for the fact that the term ‘first generation’ is tricky. How is it that you have continued to write and grow whileyour contemporaries fell by the wayside?

[Thumboo]: In a small place like Singapore, the so-called intellectuals—I use that word with great hesitation: the ‘intellectual’ as defined by the very label itself is actually a western formulation; I think it's one of those words we must be chary of using … I'm sure the poets and the philosophers in China never thought of themselves as ‘intellectuals’ because the whole tradition that led to their rise would frown on some of the elements...