Salleh Ben Joned
Malaysian poet and writer (1941-2020)
Salleh Ben Joned (5 July 1941 - 29 October 2020) was a Malaysian poet, whom some have called the "bad boy of Malaysian literature".
Early life
Salleh was born in Melaka on 5 July 1941, where he later attended the Malacca High School. He received a Colombo Plan scholarship in 1963 to study English literature in Australia, where he studied first in Adelaide, then at the University of Tasmania where he was a student of James McAuley.
Career
After returning to Malaysia in 1973, Salleh taught English literature at the University of Malaya, before becoming a freelance writer in 1983. He was also a columnist for the New Straits Times in the 1980s and 1990s. His works include Sajak-Sajak Salleh – Poems Sacred and Profane and The Amok of Mat Solo. His work often employed apparent profanity and blasphemy to criticise contemporary political and religious ideologies in Malaysia; in 1974 he publicly urinated at an art exhibition in response to what he saw as its pretentiousness. An essay written by Salleh explaining his rationale for this 'performance art' was later included in texts on art history.
Death
Salleh died at the age of 79 from heart failure at 1:21 am on 29 October 2020 at the University Malaya Medical Centre.
The public source identifies “Salleh Ben Joned” as malaysian poet and writer (1941-2020). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Salleh, Joned and Malaysian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110132451. VIAF identifies the subject as 15105881. The Library of Congress control number is nr96013309. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 2020, 1963 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Salleh Ben Joned” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.