Philip Jeyaretnam

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Philip Antony Jeyaretnam
Born 1964
 Singapore
Nationality Singapore
Education Corpus Christi College, Cambridge;
Charterhouse School;
United World College of South East Asia;
Raeburn Park School
Occupation Lawyer (Senior Counsel), Writer
Employer Rodyk & Davidson LLP
Known for Young Artist Award (1993)
South-East Asian Write Award (2003)
Parent(s) Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (deceased);
Margaret Jeyaretnam (deceased)
Relatives Kenneth Jeyaretnam; Harold Walker (former chairman AFC Bournemouth)

Philip Antony Jeyaretnam (born 1964) is a Singaporean lawyer and novelist. He is a Senior Counsel and a former President of the Law Society of Singapore. He is the son of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who was a prominent opposition politician in Singapore. His brother, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, is the secretary-general of the opposition Reform Party.

Biography

Philip received his early education at Raeburn Park School and the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore, and at the Charterhouse School in Surrey, England. He then went on to Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University, where he read Law and graduated with First Class Honours in 1986. He was admitted to the Singapore Bar in 1987, and was conferred the title of Senior Counsel in 2003. On 1 January 2011, he was appointed as managing partner of Rodyk & Davidson LLP, one of Singapore's leading law firms.[1]

His collection of short stories, First Loves, published in Singapore in 1987, claimed record sales on Singapore's Sunday Times bestseller book list. It won him the compliment as Singapore's "home-grown Maugham".[2] First Loves and his debut novel Raffles Place Ragtime (1988) were both nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize (South-east Asia and the South Pacific). His second novel, Abraham's Promise (1995) won a highly commended book award from the National Book Development Council of Singapore. He was presented with the 'Young Artist of the Year' award in 1993, the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award in 1997, and a S.E.A. Write Award in 2003.

In 1991, he was a Fulbright Fellowship visitor to the University of Iowa International Writing Program and to the Harvard Law School. He was also an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Building at the National University of Singapore from July 2006 to June 2007.

In 2015, Abraham's Promise was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965–2015, alongside titles by Arthur Yap, Daren Shiau and Amanda Lee Koe.[3]

He is a member of the Singapore Public Service Commission[4] and of the SIAC Regional Panel of Arbitrators. In July 2005, Jeyaretnam was appointed as a board member of the Singapore National Kidney Foundation. He is a former President of the Law Society of Singapore, and was Chairman of the Society of Construction Law from 2002 to 2004.

He chairs the Board of Trustees for the nonprofit arts group the Practice Performing Arts School, founded by the late theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun. In his view, the arts are as important as any other elements in the growth of a society. Writers, artists, composers, directors – whom he terms "ideas people" – are needed for a lively arts scene and that more should be done to encourage new ideas from artists. He also called for greater support from the private sector for “the serious arts”, since the popular arts are commonly “funded by the market and community organisations”.[5]

Family

He is the younger son of the late-Singaporean opposition politician, J.B. Jeyaretnam (who was the first opposition politician to be elected to Parliament in post-independence Singapore), and Margaret Walker. This makes Philip of Sri Lankan Tamil and English descent.[6] His older brother, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, is currently an opposition politician in Singapore (leading the Reform Party, which was founded by his father shortly before his death in 2008).

Works

Novels

Short Stories

  • Campfire (1983, second-prize winner of the National Short Story Competition)
  • Evening Under Frangipani (1985, winner of the National Short Story Competition)
  • First Loves (1987, Times Books International; 2009, Marshall Cavendish Editions) ISBN 9971654172 ISBN 9789812618979
  • Strangler Fig (2014, collected in Singapore Noir)

Anthologies

Articles (professional)

  • Building and Construction Law, Singapore Academy of Law Annual Reviews (vols. 2000 - 2004; co-author)

Articles (non-professional)

  • Inheritance (1991) - English-written essay, subsequently translated into German in 1993.

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ Philip Jeyaretnam, SC succeeds Helen Yeo as Managing Partner of Rodyk & Davidson, Rodyk & Davidson LLP: Lawyers, Advocates & Solicitors. Last retrieved 14 February 2014.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Newest member of PSC
  5. ↑ 'Council Member – Philip Jeyaretnam', INSTEP Nov - Dec '05. Singapore : National Arts Council.
  6. ↑ J. B. Jeyaretnam: Politician and activist who fought all his adult life for greater democracy in Singapore
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