A mammoth book on Singapore’s food, which took 14 years to complete and weighs 3.2kg, has won this year’s triennial National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore History Prize. Author Khir Johari’s gastronomic tome, The Food of the Singapore Malays: A Gastronomic Travel Through the Archipelago, beat five other shortlisted works. Its win brings to NUS’s prestigious award haul a hefty $50,000 in cash, its biggest ever.
NUS’ prize program also introduced a new Readers’ Favorite category this year to give the public a stake in its selection process. Close to 3,000 people voted across the prize’s four languages of Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil for their preferred entries. The core jury prize winners receive 3,000 Singapore dollars ($2,205) and 2,000 Singapore dollars for each merit winner, while the readers’ favorite receives 1,000 Singapore dollars ($735).
In the English poetry category, 27-year-old Marylyn Tan became the first woman in the prize’s 28-year history to triumph for her sassy debut collection Gaze Back (2022). The title draws on French feminist theorist Helene Cixous’ essay on the Greek myth of Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone. The judges praised the work for its “arcane and unapologetic” approach to taboo subjects from menstruation to sexuality, and for its searing sass and universal appetite.
The NUS Singapore Multi-Media History Prize, meanwhile, was awarded to the self-published comic Cockman (2022) by Kenfoo for its “total lack of compromise and over-the-top audacity.” The prize is given to works that use multi-media formats including film, television or graphic novels to explore historical issues or themes.
Founded in 2014 in support of NUS’s SG50 celebrations, the prize is supported by an anonymous donor who doubled the award’s cash reward and encouraged the creation of the new reader-voted category. This year, the prize’s Jury Panel was chaired by Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at NUS Asia Research Institute. “Thanks to our generous donor who has made this possible, Singaporeans will be able to engage more deeply with their rich history,” Mahbubani said.
Singapore International Violin Competition 2022
The second edition of the Singapore International Violin Competition has announced its 2022 winners. Dmytro Udovychenko will receive USD 50,000, Anna Agafia Egholm USD 25,000 and Angela Yoon USD 10,000. They will each receive multiple concert engagements in the region, as well as a new violin from Yamaha. The full list of winners can be found here. The competition was held at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore on December 14. The competition’s jury consisted of Qian Zhou (Chair), Martin Beaver, Martin T:son Engstroem and Mihaela Martin. The event was produced by Vivacity Arts.