Robert Yeo (b. 1940)
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Yeo Cheng Chuan was educated in the University of Singapore and the Institute of Education, University of London. He worked for a short period in Bangkok, Thailand. He has published six books of poetry, one novel, and written five plays, all of which have been performed in Singapore and abroad. In addition, he has edited numerous volumes of poetry, short stories and plays for schools and for the general public.
His plays include Second Chance (1988), The Eye of History (1992), and Your Bed is Your Coffin (yet to be staged), but he is perhaps best known for The Singapore Trilogy, which consists of Are You There, Singapore? (1974), One Year Back Home (1980), and Changi (1997). Yeo is also the author of a novel, The Adventures of Holden Heng (1986). Most recently, Yeo has also contributed librettos to operas: Kannagi—The Jeweled Anklet (2009) and Fences (2012), both collaborations with composer John Sharpley. Yeo’s poetry collections consist of Coming Home, Baby (1971), And Napalm Does Not Help (1977), A Part of Three (1989), and Leaving Home, Mother (1999). In 2012, Yeo published an anthology of selected poems in The Best of Robert Yeo. Yeo has also written Routes: A Singaporean Memoir 1940-75, which was published in 2011 and records the first thirty-five years of his life. In 2023, he published Routes 2: A Singaporean Memoir 1976-2000 and in 2025, his sixth book of poetry A Colette Sequence and Other poems was published.
Yeo served as chairman of the Drama Advisory Committee from 1977-92. For his “promotion of drama” he was awarded the Public Service Medal in 1991. In the nineties, he also served as chairman of the Drama Review Committee in 1992, arts advisor to the National Arts Council (NAC), a board member of the Arts Fund and Chairman of an advisory committee to the theatre department of The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA).
He was Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He taught Creative Writing from 2002-2018 as Adjunct Professor at the Singapore Management University (SMU). He turned 85 in 2025 and is currently working on a book of essays on arts policy, theatre, literature and literature education in Singapore, and on a second novel which he hopes to publish in the next few years.
Author Photo and Biography © Robert Yeo. All rights reserved.
