The NUS Singapore History Prize
As Singapore approaches its 50th anniversary, a prize to celebrate the nation’s history has been launched. The NUS Singapore History Prize will honour non-fiction books that have shed light on our country’s past. It will be awarded by a jury panel comprising five judges appointed by the NUS president. Kishore Mahbubani, NUS Asia Research Institute distinguished fellow and the prize’s founder, says that the prize is inspired by an opinion column he wrote in April 2014, calling on Singapore’s philanthropists to donate a cash prize for a book on the country’s history. A few months later, a new Singapore citizen offered to donate S$500,000 into an endowment fund to support the prize, which will be administered by NUS Press in collaboration with its history department.
The prize will also celebrate the role that historians play in a healthy civil society. The famous American social scientist Benedict Anderson once said that nations are ‘imagined communities’, and shared imagination is a critical glue holding societies together. “As such, it is essential that we know our own past,” says Mahbubani. “The history that we read and remember provides a crucial lens through which we understand our own lives and the societies around us.”
One of the four merit winners this year was Leluhur: The Story of Kampong Glam by Hidayah Amin. The prize’s other two merit winners were a graphic novel by Sonny Liew, whose work on the Singaporean comics scene has won him worldwide renown, and a work on the roots of modern Singaporean Malay cuisine by food historian Khir Johari. The prize’s consumer choice category saw a number of shortlisted works receive reader votes. The votes are worth 1,000 Singapore dollars (US$719) each, and voters also have a chance to win book-purchase vouchers.
The winner for the prize will be announced in October, with the shortlisted works to be published by NUS Press. For more information, visit the NUS Singapore History Prize website. Conservation International (CI), an organisation that promotes sustainable development, will bring its extensive global expertise in spotlighting and securing the benefits of nature for humanity as the prize’s sustainability partner. Its in-depth knowledge of conservation programmes and sustainability financing across Southeast Asia will help guide the prize selection process and connect it with a wide range of partners committed to scalable, innovative solutions for people and nature. Read more about the partnership here.