What is a Singapore Prize?
Singapore prizes are awards given out as cash awards or recognition to people for achieving significant accomplishments, often announced at ceremonies. Popular prizes can include ones awarded for science, sports or art achievements or contributions made to society or the environment.
The Singapore Literature Prize is an annual literary award which recognises works written in one or more of Singapore’s four official languages – English, Chinese, Malay or Tamil – administered by the National Arts Council which receives funding from Singaporean government. Established in 1992 and becoming one of Asia’s premier literary prizes since that time.
This year’s shortlist includes works that explore themes such as family and identity. Kamaladevi Aravindan’s novel Sembawang spans five decades to explore ordinary citizens in a neighbourhood undergoing rapid change; other titles on the list include Clara Chow’s A Hundred Million Tongues and Wong Kar-wai’s Taking On The World by Clara Chow and Wong Kar-wai respectively.
Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) officially unveiled the inaugural Dr Alan HJ Chan Spirit of Singapore Book Prize on April 18th through a donation by Confucian scholar Alan Chan. With this prize established through his donation, its aim is to promote books that champion mindsets and values central to shaping Singapore, such as equality, diversity, religious harmony, meritocracy, pragmatism as well as an emphasis on education innovation and community involvement.
An international violin competition held this year in Singapore saw over 300 violinists compete for top honors; the grand winner received USD $50,000 as his reward while runners-up received $1,200,000 while third place took home $770,000.
On July 18th, the Singapore Literary Prize finalists were revealed. Each of the six English category winners will each receive S$10,000 while Chinese and Tamil language finalists will each be receiving S$120,000 as their grand prizes; their runner-ups in each language will also be receiving an award of S$70,000.
Sharlene Wen-Ning Teo of Singapore has won the Deborah Rogers writers’ award – an incentive prize worth PS10,000 designed to assist writers as they finish their first novels. She received it for Ponti, her work that has yet to be published, which will enable her to use this prize money towards funding future novels.
Singapore National Paralympic Council has increased the financial awards given to athletes who won medals at Tokyo 2020 Games. Swimmer Yip Pin Xiu won two gold medals and received twice her normal award amount from DBS Bank which will match its contributions until after Paris 2024 Paralympic Games as well as providing extra support through its Athlete Excellence Programme (SNPC-DBS AEP).