2023 Singapore Prize Winners Announced
The winners of the 2023 singapore prize were announced during a star-studded ceremony in Singapore on Tuesday. The event, held at MediaCorp campus, was designed with sustainability in mind. Actors wore recycled clothing, and presenters walked down a “green carpet.” William H. Macy wore a 10-year-old dark green suit, while actresses Mbatha and Yen opted for eco-friendly dresses by Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. The ceremony also featured music from the bands One Republic and Bastille, as well as former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
The ceremony was the highlight of a weeklong program organized by the Earthshot Prize in partnership with Temasek Trust, the Singapore government’s sovereign wealth fund, and several local partners. It featured talks and performances from a diverse range of local and international artists, and highlighted the work of several Singapore-based companies involved in climate action.
Each winner receives $3,000, a trophy and a 12-month Storytel audiobook gift subscription. The top award is named after Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was instrumental in the country becoming the world-class city it is today.
The prize money is the highest of any literary prize in the nation. It is matched by the publisher, so it can be very lucrative for authors. Winners also get the prestige of being part of an elite group.
It is one of the oldest ongoing literature awards in Singapore, in all four of the city-state’s official languages. Books must have a significant Singapore element to be eligible for the prize, and are judged on their overall quality. The organiser, the National Book Development Council of Singapore, accepts submissions from publishers. It is a competition for English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil literature.
Jeremy Tiang won the best translation for his work on Zhang Yueran’s novel Cocoon (2022), which follows two childhood friends as they untangle a web of family secrets during the Cultural Revolution. The NUS Singapore History Prize is a first for the prize category, recognizing works that have had a lasting impact on how we understand Singapore’s history.
In the non-fiction category, the judges chose Wesley Leon Aroozoo’s The Punkhawala and the Prostitute (Singapore: Epigram Books, 2024) for its clarion call for gender and linguistic reclamation and for its universal appeal. They praised its “sassy confidence and universal appetite.” The judges of the Singapore Poetry Prize selected Gaze Back by poet Yeow Kai Chai for its “clear-eyed vision, unabashedly political and deeply personal.” The judges called it “unlike any other poetry title this year.” This is the first time that a work of poetry has won this prize. The ceremony was streamed on the organiser’s Facebook and YouTube pages. The event was also broadcast on Radio National and on the Sing! channel of the BBC. The winners were chosen by a panel of experts from Singapore, the United States and Europe. The judges were based on their knowledge of Singaporean and global literature, and their experience in reviewing the manuscripts.