The Singapore Prize is an award that honours local works of literature in English, Chinese, and Malay languages. Held biennially since 1988, this year’s competition offered 12 top prizes across four categories; winning books were chosen by a five-member Jury Panel chaired by Kishore Mahbubani of NUS Asia Research Institute; members included Emeritus Professor John N Miksic from Department of History NUS; as well as Tan Tai Yong President of Singapore University of Social Sciences Peter A Coclanis from Global Research Institute at University North Carolina.
Hidayah Amin’s book Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Gelam (2019; available here) won the 2021 prize for Singapore History. Her account illuminates an unexplored aspect of Singaporean history from personal experience as someone who lived and grew up there – another in a long list of books written by Singapore authors that offer historical events from an outsider perspective.
Two Epigram Books titles took home English fiction awards: Straits Times journalist Akshita Nanda’s novel Nimita’s Place by Akshita Nanda about Indian and Singaporean women was awarded her debut novella award while Ng Yi-Sheng won for his speculative short story collection Lion City. For Chinese fiction awards were shared between Kian Kok by Chia Joo Ming and Dakota Crescent by Wong Koi Tet; both novels focused on Singapore 50 events.
Celebrities joined Britain’s Prince William to walk a green carpet at Singapore’s third Earthshot awards ceremony, honoring winners ranging from solar-powered dryers and food waste reduction devices to improving electric car battery efficiency. Oscar-winning filmmaker Cate Blanchett, Australian wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin and actor Donnie Yen presented prizes – while Prince William chairing Earthshot advisory board said its solutions had shown “that hope still lives despite climate change despair”.
Muhammad Dinie of ITE College Central shared how he and his teammates went around Ang Mo Kio estate distributing packed meals and groceries during the Covid-19 pandemic in an impactful TED-style talk, as one of four non-fiction winners. Other non-fiction winners were Carousell, food delivery service Graze and National Parks Board’s reforestation project. For more information about these awards please visit the official website here, follow social media using #SGPrize or sign up for our mailing list (you can opt-out any time!). For updates you can sign up here or subscribe via #SGPrize on social media using hashtag #SGPrize or sign up for our mailing list (you can opt-in any time).