Enright, D.J. (1920– 2002) British poet, novelist and academic. Born in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Dennis Joseph Enright was educated at Leamington College and then at Downing College, Cambridge University, where he was a student of F.R. Leavis. In 1947, he began his academic career with a teaching post at the University of Alexandria in Egypt. In 1959, he became Johor Professor of English at the University of Malaya in Singapore. He angered the newly elected People’s Action Party (PAP) government in his inaugural lecture when he attacked the government’s plans to curb so- called ‘yellow culture’ by banning jukeboxes and pornography. He quoted W.B. Yeats, arguing that culture grew from ‘the foul rag and bone shop of the heart’, and warned that Singapore should not be allowed to degenerate into a Sunday- school class. PAP leaders were incensed and branded Enright a ‘beatnik mendicant professor’. He almost lost his work permit; but a conciliatory letter to Lee Kuan Yew and mediation resolved the controversy, and Enright remained in Singapore until 1970.

Enright wrote of his experiences in Singapore in his Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (1969) which was banned in Singapore. In 1970, he returned to the United Kingdom to work as an editor (1970– 72) and director (1974– 82) of Chatto and Windus, a publishing house. He also accepted an honorary professorship at Warwick University. His other published works include The Laughing Hyena and Other Poems (1953); Poets of the 1950s (1955); Academic Year (1955); The Joke Shop (1976); Wild Ghost Chase (1978); and Beyond Land’s End (1979). Enright died of cancer on 31 December 2002.

Photo credit: Singapore Press Holdings/ The Straits Times