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S. Rajaratnam’s Collection in the ISEAS Library 

Published 23 Aug 2024
Collections

Mr S. Rajaratnam (1915-2006), Singapore’s first and longest-serving Foreign Minister, was a Distinguished Senior Fellow at ISEAS from 1988 to 1997. Being an avid reader since his youth, he had built up a fine personal library, glimpses of which can be seen in Image 1 below.  

Image 1: Photographs of Rajaratnam’s bookshelves at his home in Chancery Lane, Singapore. The photographs were taken by Rajaratnam himself and were published in Private passion: the photographs of pioneer politician and diplomat S. Rajaratnam. 

After his passing in 2006, more than 4700 volumes from his personal library were donated to the ISEAS Library by his nephews, Datuk Dr S. Vijayaratnam and Mr S. Jothiratnam. This collection is the subject of this post. ISEAS Library also holds S. Rajaratnam’s private papers, which had earlier been deposited by Dr V.K. Pillai in 1998. More information on the S. Rajaratnam Private Papers Collection is available at this page. 

The S. Rajaratnam Collection in the ISEAS Library, Singapore: a catalogue lists 4,315 titles available at the library. This book collection provides a telling reflection of Rajaratnam’s thoughts and interests as a thinker, statesman, and writer.  

Image 2: One of the shelves in ISEAS Library housing the S. Rajaratnam collection. 

A survey of the collection suggests that he was very interested in thoughts, ideas and the human condition. Books on philosophy, psychology and religion alone make up more than 15% of the collection, and this excludes works in other subjects such as history, political science and literature (see below) that also relate to ideas and philosophies. Many of these titles may be considered classics and familiar to readers.

Given Rajaratnam’s stature as a statesman, diplomat and politician, it is not surprising that almost half of the collection is on civilisation, history, the social sciences, and politics. Examples of titles in this category are: 

Image 3: Some of Rajaratnam’s books on civilisation, history, the social sciences, and politics.

The section on language, linguistics and literature probably ties in with Rajaratnam’s early interest in writing and journalism. This includes classics on the use of the English language such as and Fowler & Fowler’s The King’s English, and Sir Ernest Gowers’ The complete plain words. Perhaps less expected are the 18 titles about jokes and humour, while other titles in this section illustrate Rajaratnam’s abiding interest in thought and philosophy even in the context of language and literature. 

Fiction and literature make up around 10% of the collection – not surprising for such a prolific reader as Rajaratnam. Aside from English and American titles, there are a good number of translations, mostly from Western languages, and a number from Japanese including seven works by the renowned author Yukio Mishima. Here is a sampling of these translations that reflect his wide-ranging interests: 

Among the varied genres of fiction and literature in Rajaratnam’s collection is science fiction. Titles from this genre include the familiar and not-so-familiar, such as: 

Elements from Rajaratnam’s reading can be found in some of his writings and speeches. Specifically from science fiction, Rajaratnam’s biographer, Irene Ng, has referred to his speech about the “cyborg problem” in the context of ageing [1]. Rajaratnam’s draft writings about this topic can be seen in SR.060.006 to 007a (pp. 55-105) of his private papers. 

A companion volume to the catalogue of his book collection is S. Rajaratnam: a bibliography, which contains citations of speeches, articles and works by and on Rajaratnam. ISEAS Library also holds other works about Rajaratnam, including: 

The S. Rajaratnam collection is available for consultation on-site at ISEAS Library.  

Notes

[1] Irene Ng, The Singapore Lion: a Biography of S. Rajaratnam (ISEAS Publishing, 2010), xvi-xvii.
[2] A note on the statistics: This brief analysis was done based on the call numbers of the titles in the S. Rajaratnam Collection, as extracted from the ISEAS Library database. Analysis was done based on the classification numbers originally assigned upon cataloguing; however, statistics have been kept intentionally approximate to recognise the multifaceted nature of some works.