The Singapore Prize, a biennial award in the arts and sciences, recognises outstanding published works by authors of Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. A record 17 writers, translators and comic artists received awards this year for work ranging from memoirs to graphic novels to poetry.
Among the winners was writer Cyril Wong, who won the top honour in the English language literature category for his novel The Unfinished Symphony of Ning Cai. The story follows a kiteboarder who is pulled into an international crime ring. Wong’s winning entry was lauded for its use of language to highlight the human dimension of international crime.
The organisers of the Singapore Prize also launched a new arts and multi-media category this year, which will focus on historical works that are creative, artistic and innovative. The 2025 NUS Singapore History Prize for Arts and Multimedia will be open to artists, writers, playwrights, performers or producers of multimedia and artistic works that deal with Singaporean history. The competition will accept submissions that address any field, theme or time period of Singaporean history, and aim to broaden the understanding of and excitement about Singapore’s past.
Singaporean kiteboarder Max Maeder won a million Singapore dollars (about $753,579) payout for winning the gold medal at the Paris World Cup in August. The cash prize was part of the country’s Major Games Award Programme, which offers athletes payouts for their performances in the Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth Games. The scheme was introduced in 2011 and has boosted the number of gold medals won by Singaporean athletes.
Britain’s Prince William handed out the Earthshot Prize to 15 entrepreneurs and organisations that are working to repair our planet, at a ceremony in Singapore. The winners will get catalytic funding to scale their environmental solutions. The solutions range from making electric car batteries cleaner to restoring Andean forests to deter illegal fishing.
The Singapore Literature Prize, the country’s oldest ongoing literary award, also announced its 2024 winners. Artist Shubigi Rao won the best English comic or graphic novel for Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory of the Banished Book (2022), her third instalment of a decade-long project on books that have been banned. The prize for the best English debut went to 91-year-old National University of Singapore professor emeritus Peter Ellinger, who won for Down Memory Lane: Peter Ellinger’s Memoirs (2023). He is the oldest winner of the award. The ceremony was broadcast live online on the Facebook and YouTube pages of the Singapore Book Council. A total of 17 authors, translators and comic artists won awards in the main categories and special sections. The winners will have their works on display for three weeks at Millenia Walk from Oct 8 to 30. A selection of artworks from the contest will be auctioned to raise funds for The Business Times Budding Artists Fund, which supports free art education for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds.
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