Salleh Ben Joned

Salleh Ben Joned (4 July 1941 - 29 October 2020) was a Malaysian poet. He was called the "bad boy of Malaysian literature".

Early life
Salleh was born in Melaka on 4 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.

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.