SINGAPORE – The winner of this year’s Singapore prize — a biennial award for literary work — received a cash prize and an engraved trophy. Presented by the Singapore Book Publishers Association (SBPA), the Singapore Prize is considered one of the top literary awards in Singapore. It is the country’s second highest book award, ranked below the Epigram Books Fiction Prize, which was once Singapore’s richest literary prize and comes with a cash prize of $25,000 and a trophy.
The story of ordinary Singaporeans takes centre stage in this year’s shortlist for the NUS Singapore History Prize, which seeks to spur interest in the country’s past. The six works on the list include the historical tome Seven Hundred Years: A History Of Singapore (2019) by Kwa Chong Guan, Tan Tai Yong, Peter Borschberg and Derek Heng, as well as novels and non-fiction with a personal slant. They forgo the traditional view of history as a record of big movers and shakers, instead focusing on ordinary people and their lives.
Jeremy Tiang’s State Of Emergency (2017) and Home Is Where We Are (2020) explore life in the 1950s, a period when “Singapore’s future seemed up for grabs”. Prof Miksic said he chose Leluhur: Singapore Kampong Gelam (2019, available here) by Hidayah Amin because it showed that anyone with a passion for history can write a good book. He added that the book, which tells the story of a family’s journey from Gedung Kuning in Kampong Glam to its current location, was an “excellent example of how a narrative can be both a synthesis and a primary source”.
A materials scientist from Singapore who develops new, sustainable two-dimensional (2D) films for high-performance electronics, optics and artificial intelligence has won this year’s APEC Science Prize. Dr Zheng Liu’s research is focused on using the atomic structure of quantum dots to achieve unprecedented performance, and reduce the energy consumption of devices made with 2D materials by up to 100 times.
Innovative projects aimed at creating a waste-free world, fixing the earth’s climate and reviving oceans have been selected as winners of the 2023 Prince William Earthshot Prize. The prize, launched in 2020, is supported by philanthropic organisation Temasek Trust, investment company Temasek Holdings, decarbonisation investment platform GenZero and non-profit environmental organisation Conservation International. It will award winners PS1 million (Rs 1.7 lakh approximately) each to scale up their solutions and reach the impact they desire. The awards ceremony will be held later this month in Singapore.
