The Singapore Prize Shortlist For 2019
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Six works have been shortlisted for the singapore prize, which is awarded by a panel of judges to a non-fiction or historical fiction book that has made a significant contribution to understanding Singapore’s past. This year’s winner will be announced in October.
The shortlist includes a memoir on the life of an average Singaporean family, which eschews the notion that history is simply a record of big movers and shakers. Another book, Sembawang by Kamaladevi Aravindan, traces the lives of people in an estate across five decades.
Other titles in the running include State Of Emergency (2019, available here), which follows a leftist political movement and the detentions that came with it, and Leluhur: The Story Of Kampong Gelam (2019, available here), by Hidayah Amin. The award was founded in 2014 to enliven interest and discussion about Singapore’s history, with the goal of fostering greater national cohesion. It was the brainchild of Kishore Mahbubani, a senior fellow at NUS’ Asia Research Institute. The award was inspired by the idea that nations are “imagined communities”, and that a shared imagination is a key to their social glue.
Last year’s winner was The Gift of Time: Stories by William Tan, a memoir on the life of the former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The book explores his rise from a low-income family to become one of the country’s most prominent leaders, and the challenges that come with it. The memoir also describes his battle with colon cancer and the impact of his illness on his loved ones.
As for the future of the prize, Kishore Mahbubani told Rice Media that the jury is considering expanding the definition of what can be considered a book to allow works like movies, comics and other multimedia formats to enter the competition. He cited the movie 12 Years A Slave as an example of how history can be conveyed more effectively through other mediums, and that these can sometimes reach readers in ways that a traditional textbook cannot.
Toto results show that one lucky ticketholder has won $127,391 in the Group 2 prize during the draw on Oct 2. The winning ticket was sold at Giant supermarkets in Pioneer Mall and FairPrice in the Woodleigh Mall, as well as at the Singapore Pools online store and Singapore Pools outlets at The Star Vista and Chinatown Point. It is not known whether the ticket was bought by a single person or by several. The prize has a one-in-eleven chance of being won. The winners will be notified by email or text message on Monday. Find out more at the Toto website.