2023 Singapore Prize Shortlist Announced
SINGAPORE — A single winning ticket in the Group 2 category in the Singapore Pools’ 2023 Mega Draw won a prize of $127,391 — a record-breaking amount in the history of the country’s national lottery. The ticket was sold at outlets including the Singapore Pools branch in Chinatown Point, Giant supermarket and NTUC FairPrice in Woodleigh Mall. The prize money will be distributed to the winners in January.
The 2023 Singapore Prize celebrates the work of writers, translators and comic artists who push the boundaries of writing and publishing. It is open to all works published between January 2017 and May 30 this year. The prize is a joint initiative by the National University of Singapore and the Asia Literary Forum.
The pool of submissions for this year’s Singapore Prize shrunk from last year to 49 titles in three genres and four languages. But organizers say the smaller number of entries is a result of the coronavirus pandemic and not a sign that people are less interested in reading.
In the English literary category, Jeremy Tiang’s translation of Chinese author Zhang Yueran’s Cocoon (2022) earned him the inaugural prize for English translation. The book reveals how two childhood friends uncover dark secrets linked by bloodlines, love and politics in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. The prize for English nonfiction was awarded to historian Timothy P. Barnard’s Imperial Creatures (2019, available here), a study of the relationships between humans and animals in colonial Singapore. The shortlist for the English creative nonfiction also includes the director of the Singapore Writers Festival, Yeow Kai Chai, and Pooja Nansi vying with Mok Zining’s first book of poetry, The Orchid Folios.
Historical tomes are front and center on the NUS history prize shortlist, but so too are books with a more personal slant. Hidayah Amin’s Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Glam (2019, available here) shines a light on the heritage Royal Building at the heart of the neighborhood where she was born and raised. Similarly, Kamaladevi Aravindan’s novel Sembawang (2020, available here) gives readers a glimpse into life in the estate of the same name over five decades.
The NUS Earthshot Prize ceremony celebrated 15 finalists Tuesday, including an Indian maker of solar-powered dryers, a soil carbon marketplace and groups that aim to make electric car batteries cleaner and restore Andean forests. Prince William, who launched the $10 million 10-year program in 2020, praised all of the finalists for proving that hope does remain even as climate change continues to wreak havoc across the world. NUS is also running a separate competition for youth to find solutions to the global water crisis. The finalists include a school that uses recycled waste to teach chemistry, and a group that helps to bolster enforcement against illegal fishing. The winner will be announced in December.