The Singapore Prize is a biennial award that recognises outstanding published works in Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. It is the most prestigious literary prize in Singapore. In 2023, 12 top prizes were awarded to a mix of fiction and non-fiction writers. This year, the prize included a new category called the “Singapore Press Club Sustainability Journalism Award” with a SG$10,000 cash prize and two-night stay in a hotel worth up to $1,000 for each winner.

This year’s awards were presented at a ceremony at Victoria Theatre. Suratman Markasan won the English fiction prize for “Please Bear with Me,” and the rmaa cureess (Rama Suresh) from Tamil fiction category was also a top winner, winning the Reader’s Favourite Tamil Prize. The new “Deborah Rogers Writers’ Prize” was awarded to first-time winner Sharlene Wen-Ning Teo for her work “Boys in Blue.” The prize comes with a SG$10,000 cash prize to support the writer as she works on her next book.

In the architecture and urban design category, the jury lauded Kay Ngee Tan Architects’s legacy of “making buildings more meaningful” with projects like Old Bukit Timah Railway Station and Commune by the Great Wall in China. They also highlighted the firm’s “commitment to education and fostering talent in young architects.” The jury cited the design of “The Edge” as an example of how the practice has used innovation to make cities more sustainable.

At the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, violinists Dmytro Udovychenko and Anna Agafia Egholm won the top prizes at the Singapore International Violin Competition. The winners will receive a total of USD $110,000 in prizes, including multiple concert engagements and performances with the Yong Siew Toh Orchestra.

In a break from tradition, the Singapore Literature Prize this year offered three awards in each language. In previous years, the award recognised only one novel and poetry in each language. The winning works were chosen by the jury of 12 leading Singaporean literary figures, including Chang Yucheng, Ariel Lim and Jeremy Tiang.

This year’s Singapore Prize was honoured to welcome presenting sponsor Citibank and Sustainability Journalism Award title sponsor City Developments Limited (CDL) as well as Telum Media as a new category sponsor. The judging criteria for the Rising Stars and Sustainability Journalism awards focuses on a nominee’s long-term, consistent track record of impacting and changing mindsets and behaviours towards sustainability. The judging panel reserves the right to confer more than one award where they deem it appropriate.