I write to keep myself from dying of boredom, for I can't see what's so wonderful about this life on earth. And I try to publish for it's the only bulwark against my oppressors, and these are legion, very varied, and wholly determined. I have had only four years' of haphazard schooling, and the rest (including the highest French doctorate from the Sorbonne), I plucked mainly extra-murally. My working life began at nine and still continues in retirement. I get the feeling from my reading that the only things new I've ever learned have their origin in psychology, quantum mechanics, and astro-physics. My major influences I'd say come from having listened to all kinds of music, far from deafening applause. As for books, among the many,I'd pick "Don Quijote de la Mancha", Shakespeare's major tragedies, "Candide", "Gulliver's Travels", and the like. There's nothing like a literary master-piece. Not even Creation.

I don't feel I have really achieved anything as yet, apart from bringing up a son, all by myself, in the midst of those who think a child is an expendable commodity and have handicapped him for life. As a former general practitioner who hadn't seen me for a decade said: " What! Still alive! It's an achievement just to stay alive so long!"

(1). Etude comparée des littératures nationales et/officielles de la Malaisie et de Singapour depuis 1941. 2 vols. Lille: Université de Lille-III, 2007, 1152p. Price: 105,50 Euros. (2). Rama and Ravana at the Altar of Hanuman: Studies in Tamil Topics. Chennai, India: Institute of Asian Studies, 2006, xii-439p. Price: US$25/- (3).Tracks of a Tramp (A first collection of poems). K.L.-Singapore: Rayirath Publications, 1961. (4)Bunga Emas: An Anthology of Contemporary Malaysian Literature, 1930-63. London: Blond & Raybooks, 1964. (5). Books published by Cyberwit.net in 2008, including a novel: "The Night Soil Man"; a collection of short stories: "mere deaths and the mostly dead"; a collection of vignettes: "Victorian (pen-in-cheek) Vignettes & Tales (not so tall) of Timmy (the not so very polite), the Malaya Hall Cat in London"; "Poietics: Disquisitions on the Art of Creation"; "Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images, and Stereotypic Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures"; & "Rama and Ravana at the Altar of Hanuman: on Tamils, Tamil Literature & Tamil Culture". Reviews by Adam Donaldson Powell: http://www.adamdonaldsonpowell.com/wignesan.html

Poietics: Disquisitions on the Art of Creation & Victorian (pen-in-cheek) Vignettes & Tales (not so tall) of Timmy, the (not so very polite) Malaya Hall Cat in London
Cf. reviews by Adam Donaldson Powell

Rama and Ravana at the Altar of Hanuman: Studies in Tamil Culture
http://www.www.cyberwit.net/wignesan.htm The author of these essays, articles, critiques, interviews, cogitations, poems and a long short story on Tamil Studies topics spent nearly all his adulthood in Europe (England, Germany, Spain, and, now, France) in the days when the Tamil presence there (excepting Indian-Tamils holding French passports) was scarce. He owes his knowledge of Tamil to his teenaged-parents who began immigrant life in the old Federated (and Un-Federated) Malay States and Straits Settlements in Peninsular Malaysia. This collection is raised on that heritage. Tamil was hardly ever taught in the European Continent, and those following the courses in London, Paris or Heidelberg were few and far between. Even Tamil publications were hard to come by. Not until the exodus of Tamils from Sri Lanka following the July-1983 ethnic riots interest in things Tamil took shape. A Tamil-instituted media industry soon sprouted deep roots. The author published his first major article on Tamils only in March 1990. The present collection testifies to his own growing concerns with his mother tongue and the need to research and resurrect a language and literature dating from a few centuries B.C.E., and to re-evaluate the achievement of a people who had known better times in the past. In the meantime, Tamil has been officially recognised - since 2005 - as a classical language on a par with Sanskrit in India. As he, himself, says in the first article: “It is to this past that the educated masses of the Tamils turn, and it is in this past that the majority of the Tamils, both in Tamil-Nadu and in the Tamil diaspora, seek their origins, and eventually their distinctive identity as well, today, as a people. But what is particularly noteworthy is that - even if the vast majority of the Tamils may not possess an intimate knowledge of their classical past - Tamils take great pride in the knowledge that there was once a language, a literature, and a people with their own independent history and which owed practically nothing, or little, to outside influences.”

My books on amazon.com
http://www.amazon.fr/Livres/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A301061&field-author=T.%20Wignesan&page=1 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=T.%20Wignesan

Asianists' Asia
An on-line academic journal for Asianophone researched articles, essays, reviews, faction or fiction, which may not easily find a place in established journals in the field. Volume six now being prepared.