By this point, he was well-established as a writer, having published four novels and six collections of poems. Fortunately, the students' union backed him (he was a much-loved professor, in all the places he professed) and after he had written a conciliatory letter, the affair blew over.Įnright remained in Singapore for 10 years. In his inaugural lecture at the University of Singapore in 1960, he offended the newly elected government, was denounced as a "mendicant professor", almost lost his work permit and became the centre of what became known as "the Enright Affair" (even the Times in London carried reports). The embassy told him he was "a disgrace". Driving home late, he found his route blocked by a police car whose occupants were visiting a brothel: gently closing the car door to pass, he was set upon by 15 policemen who, as he described it in his autobiography, were obliged "to beat me up in self-defence". The first was in Bangkok, where he was British Council professor at Chulalongkorn University (1957-59). Stubbornly independent, and thus an object of mistrust to the British Embassy and foreign governments, Enright twice provoked diplomatic incidents. He mixed with locals, and could be adventurous in his enthusiasm for indigenous customs. But in Alexandria (1947-50) - where he met his French wife, Madeleine - he found life a good deal more attractive than in ration-book Britain. He taught overseas - mainly in south Asian universities from 1947 to 1970 - by default: as a disciple of Leavis he could not get a job in British universities. His tutor's idea that literature can and should enlarge our moral universe was one that never left him.
When, in his 50s, he wrote about his working-class, Black Country upbringing, in the excellent, anecdotal The Terrible Shears (1973), even when recounting social snobbery, he remains affectionate, wry: "How docile the lower orders were/ In those days! Having done/ Unexpectedly well in the School Cert,/ I was advised by the headmaster to leave school/ At once and get a job before they found/ A mistake in the examination results."Įnright was taught at Downing College, Cambridge, by FR Leavis and contributed to the magazine Scrutiny.
His father was Irish and a postman, his mother Welsh and a chapel-goer. But the real affection was for the man: gentle-mannered but uncompromising, tough-minded but humane, above all funny - a person for whom the adjective "sardonic" was invented.Įnright was born in Leamington. That affection was stirred by the intelligence and integrity he brought to a range of writing: his novel Academic Year (1955), his Memoirs Of A Mendicant Professor (1969), his essays, reviews, anthologies and children's books.
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