The Singapore Prize is awarded to works of non-fiction published in English, Mandarin and Tamil that are deemed to make significant contributions to knowledge about Singapore. The prize was launched in 2014 by the NUS Department of History to spur interest in and understanding about Singapore’s history and culture. It is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.
‘Online safety’ is the theme of this year’s Singapore Prize, with the aim of encouraging safer online interactions in the multilingual, multicultural, and diverse digital landscape of Singapore. The 10th edition of the prize will run from Nov 6 to Dec 2021, with a grand finale event in April 2022. The competition is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Ministry of Education.
In the past, prize winners have included former Tatler cover star Ellie Goulding and football legend David Beckham. This year, Prince William will visit the city to meet the prize winners and finalists during a new Earthshot Week in November. The initiative will see global leaders, businesses and investors convene in Singapore to explore exciting opportunities with the TEP finalists and winners, aimed at accelerating their solutions and bringing about tangible action to repair our planet.
There is a one-in-eleven chance of winning a prize in each Singapore Pools draw. The winner’s name and amount of the prize are announced at the end of each draw, after a random number generator has determined the winning numbers. Prizes can be redeemed at any of the more than 400 Singapore Pools outlets islandwide, or online.
A total of 17 writers and translators were awarded the Singapore Literature Prize at a ceremony held on Tuesday. The prizes are given out by the National Book Development Council of Singapore for books published in the four official languages of Singapore – Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. The top prize is $10,000 for the best work of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. 91-year-old NUS Professor Emeritus Peter Ellinger won the English section for Down Memory Lane: Peter Ellinger’s Memoirs, a book that also made him the oldest prize winner.
The Jury Panel commended two other publications for their contribution to scholarship on Singapore’s historical and cultural heritage, and for raising public awareness about them. They are Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong Yuqing and Lee Kok Leong, and Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee and Juria Toramae. Both are important studies of how the past has shaped Singapore’s contemporary social, political and economic landscape.
