The annual Singapore Prize awards recognise the best in book publishing across a broad range of categories. Presented by the Singapore Book Publishers’ Association (SBPA), the winners include literary works, education titles, professional titles and various categories of non-fiction, as well as a prestigious Book of the Year title selected from subsidiary award winners.
The prize, now in its sixth year, is awarded to a book or book-based work that has made a substantial contribution to our understanding of Singapore’s history and culture. It is open to books and multi-media works delivered in English (or translations into English), with no limitation on the date of production. The 2024 competition will also see the introduction of a new Arts and Multimedia category to enable Singaporeans who are not academics or journalists to participate in the competition.
In 2024, the competition will be chaired by Kishore Mahbubani, former diplomat and Distinguished Fellow at NUS Asia Research Institute, who helped found the Singapore History Prize in 2014. He said: “Our donor has doubled the prize money and encouraged the creation of a new category, so that as many people as possible can engage with our rich history. This is crucial for the next phase of our nation’s development, where the strength of our national identity must be reinforced and deepened.”
The inaugural prize was won by archaeologist Professor John Miksic, who was honoured with the Singapore Prize in 2018. His book ‘Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800’ won out over five shortlisted entries and is available at Kinokuniya bookstores and online.
It was also the first time that the prize was voted on by consumers, with more than 4,000 people casting their votes. The four consumer choice winners – Ali bin Salim, Daryl Qilin Yam, Pan Zheng Lei and rma cureess – each receive 1,000 Singapore dollars ($719), with the top vote-getter receiving a cash prize of 10,000 Singapore dollars ($1,500).
The top three books that received the highest number of reader votes are The Art Of Being Lost by Jeremy Lee, Imperial Creatures by Timothy P. Barnard and Home Is Where We Are by Nicola Singh. These books will all be published in the near future.
The winning authors will be invited to attend Earthshot Week from 6-8 November, a week of thought leadership and innovation, where global leaders, business owners, investors and the public can get up close and personal with TEP’s finalists and learn about their innovative environmental solutions that can help repair the planet and bring about measurable impact. More information on the event can be found here.