The Singapore Prize is an biennial award presented by the National Book Development Council of Singapore to Singaporean authors for outstanding works published across their four official languages – Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. Considered one of the highest honours within Singapore itself, these awards represent outstanding literature from Singapore’s authors in these four official languages.
This year, the award will introduce an Arts and Multimedia Category as well as its existing Books Category. These two will alternate over three-year cycles and do away with specific entry categories that separate students, professionals or corporates; instead opening it up to all creative people who use design as their main problem-solving tool.
First ever awarded by this prize is an honouring of both literary merit and historical value of a book, chosen by an esteemed Prize Panel chaired by Kishore Mahbubani of NUS Asia Research Institute Distinguished Fellow status. Additionally, there will be both cash component as well as public engagement/legacy elements associated with this Prize.
Ultimately, this will allow the Prize to reach more readers and be more responsive to society’s current needs. More specifically, the Prize will promote non-fiction’s role in telling Singapore’s history while encouraging readers to connect with history through reading.
The 2022 Singapore Literature Prize has been dubbed “resonance”, with its theme exploring how literature can elicit emotions and memories. Judges noted an increase in entries this year due to the coronavirus pandemic causing people to reconsider relationships within their community and how they can make a difference there.
Five writers earned shortlist placement in both the English fiction and nonfiction categories for 2018. Clara Chow was selected twice, becoming the first person in program history to do so.
Finalists will be invited to attend a gala ceremony in November where they will receive awards and up to S$1 million of catalytic funding to scale and bring their innovations to market. Furthermore, they can take part in a year-long mentoring programme featuring world-class scientists, business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Muhammad Dinie of College Central’s Institute of Technical Education won this year’s Harvard Prize Book by helping to coordinate an appreciation project for Town Council cleaners during the Covid-19 pandemic – giving out food packages, groceries and thank-you cards in his neighborhood to Town Council workers during this difficult period. Other winners were Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm and Angela Sin Ying Chan.