Awards Season

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

On Tuesday, we announced the first annual Singapore Unbound Awards for the Best Undergraduate Critical Essays on Singapore and Other Literatures. The awards aim to encourage the teaching and study of Singapore literature at college level and the cultivation of general appreciation for the character and achievements of Singapore literature. Three awards of USD250.00 each are given to written works of literary criticism that illuminate their chosen topics for the general reader. Essay topics may include studies of a single author or a single work. The topics may also be of a comparative nature, that is, the essays may compare an author/work with another author/work. The second author/work may be non-Singaporean.

Because of the fine quality of the top entries, four awards, instead of three, were given out this year. Our warmest congratulations to Liow Xin Li (Nanyang Technological University), Danial Matin Bin Zaini (National University of Singapore), Joan Ang (University of York), and Ho Kin Yunn (Singapore University of Social Sciences), for winning these inaugural awards. You may read their interesting essay abstracts in our press release. [We sincerely apologize for the misspellings of the names of Liow Xin Li and Danial Matin Bin Zaini in the press release.) The full essays will be published on SP Blog in October.

We also wish to heartily congratulate our Gaudy Boy author Monique Truong for being named a finalist for the 2021 John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. The John Dos Passos Prize for Literature is given annually by Longwood University to a mid-career writer whose work offers incisive, original commentary on American themes. The winner of the prize receives an honorarium and gives a reading on Longwood University’s campus. Former winners include Annie Proulx, Colson Whitehead, Sherman Alexie, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Rabih Alameddine. The jurors will select a winner in October. If you are in Singapore and Malaysia, ask for Monique Truong's latest novel THE SWEETEST FRUITS at your local bookstore or buy it from online retailer SGBookshelf.

Jee Leong Koh
September 23, 2021

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