Awards
Thumboo has won the National Book Development Council of Singapore Book Awards for Poetry three times, in 1978 for Gods Can Die (1977), in 1980 for Ulysses by the Merlion (1979), and again in 1994 for A Third Map (1993). He also received the inaugural S.E.A. Write Award in 1979, the first Cultural Medallion for Literature in 1979, and the ASEAN Cultural and Communication Award (Literature) in 1987. In October 2002, he presented the keynote address at the biennial meeting of the International Association of World Englishes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, he was presented with the Raja Rao Award for his contributions to the literature of the Indian diaspora.
Thumboo was conferred a Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Star) in 1981 with an additional Bar in 1991, and the Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Services Medal) as Distinguished Poet and Literary Scholar in 2006.
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