For the first time since its inception, the prize will recognise a work that goes beyond the traditional monograph and provides new insights into Singapore’s history. The Jury Panel hopes that this will encourage and enable more Singaporeans to become involved in the study of their country’s past.
The NUS Singapore History Prize was established in 2014 to celebrate the national SG50 programme to mark the 50th anniversary of Singapore’s independence and is administered by the Department of History at NUS. It is open to all academic and general readers to reward an outstanding publication that has made a lasting impact on the understanding of Singapore’s history.
A five-member jury, chaired by Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the NUS Asia Research Institute, and comprising eminent local and international scholars, shortlisted six works from a total of 26 submissions. The panel selected Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong Yuqing and Lee Kok Leong for its “excellent contribution to scholarship and public engagement in Singapore” while Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee and Juria Toramae was chosen for its “compelling and riveting narrative that takes a fresh look at an understudied aspect of the city’s history”.
SUSS is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Dr Alan HJ Chan Book Prize. The 2023 winner of the Prize is Woon Tai Ho for The Soul of Ink: Lim Tze Peng at 100, while Khir Johari won the Merit prize for The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago.
This year’s prize also saw the introduction of a new Arts and Multimedia category, which aims to encourage Singaporeans to explore the depths of their nation’s history in creative ways, including film, photography, music, dance and theatre. Five artists, authors, playwrights and composers were shortlisted for this category and Professor Yong Shu Hoong, lecturer in English at SUSS, won the award for his poetry collection Anatomy of a Wave, published by Dakota Books. This is Yong’s third winning of the Singapore Literature Prize after Frottage and The Viewing Party.
Other winners included violinists Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm and Angela Sin Ying Chan for their performances at the inaugural Singapore International Violin Competition. They each received USD $110,000 in prizes, along with multiple concert engagements. The prestigious awards ceremony was held at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore. President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was the guest of honour at the event, which also presented the NUS Singapore History Prize. The late Malay author Suratman Markasan was posthumously honoured with an Achievement award on behalf of his family. Join us on our Telegram channel for all the latest updates. Sign up here.