Singapore Prize 2018 saw a new wave of Singaporean authors take home top honours, with five out of six English category winners first-timers – among them alllkunilaa (Azhagunila), Innnpaa (Inbha) by Jee Leong Koh and Rama Suresh – becoming winners in their respective fields for their works on Singapore Chinatown history. Alllkunilaa won first prize while Suresh went home with second and rma cureesss
The Singapore History Publishing Award honours publications that make an enduring impactful statement about Singaporean history, with works in English, Chinese and Malay eligible for consideration. This year’s shortlist, comprising six titles published over the past year, eschews traditional views of history as an account of major players – instead highlighting books with personal narratives that highlight an estate over decades; such as Kwa Chong Guan’s Seven Hundred Years: A History Of Singapore by Peter Borschberg and Derek Heng and Kamaladevi Aravindan’s novel Sembawang 2020 by Kamaladevi Aravindan; among others.
Loretta Chen’s debut book M/other: 20 Powerful Stories Of Parental Love Against All Odds was selected as part of Epigram Books’ shortlist; Marshall Cavendish International Asia eventually bought global publishing rights; while The House Of Little Sisters by Suchen Christine Lim received international publishing rights after publishing with Epigram Books; also on this shortlist was Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Gelam by Hidayah Amin as nonfiction work that explored more political content.
Apart from receiving main prizes, winners of this year’s competition are expected to be honored at a gala dinner and awards ceremony on 6 November in Singapore, featuring performances by internationally acclaimed artists and musicians.
Finalists in the Earthshot category will receive GBP 1 Million (SGD 1.7 Million) to assist their projects and ideas, and demonstrate tangible impacts they are having on our planet. Leaders, businesses and investors from around the globe will also join them as judges of this competition.
This year’s Community and Individual categories demonstrate an increasing emphasis on giving back to the community, with notable initiatives that target racial and religious harmony, at-risk youth empowerment and paediatric palliative care receiving accolades – up 33% over last year! 315 nominations were submitted this year alone for consideration, making a selection process even more rigorous. The winners were ultimately selected from these pool nominations by our judges.
Top three winners in each of the 12 categories received cash prizes of SGD 30,000, a hand-crafted trophy and a one-year gift code to audiobook platform StoryTel. In Readers’ Favourite voting round 4,000 consumers cast ballots – almost twice the previous vote count – to select four winning writers (Ali bin Salim, Daryl Qilin Yam, Pan Zheng Lei and rma cureess) each of whom will receive SGD 1,000 and their readers the chance to receive book vouchers worth $50 each time their books come up for consideration here. To view shortlisted works and authors across languages click here