Jeremy Tiang wins Singapore Literature Prize in English fiction
Full-time writer and translator Jeremy Tiang has won the Singapore Literature Prize in the English fiction category for his debut novel, a book about leftist movements and political detentions in Singapore and Malaysia.
Tiang's novel State of Emergency emerged the winner out of a shortlist that also included The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid, Sugarbread by Balli Kaur Jaswal, Death Of A Perm Sec by Wong Souk Yee and Jennani Durai's short story collection, Regrettable Things That Happened Yesterday.
Tiang's book, which is told from multiple perspectives, unfolds against a backdrop of moments in Singapore's history, from the Hock Lee bus riots of 1955 to the long-drawn guerilla war of the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1960.
The awards were announced at a ceremony yesterday by the Singapore Book Council.
The council's executive director William Phuan said Tiang's win was a "unanimous decision" by the judges, citing the quality of the prose and its "historical perspective... weaving together different characters, times and places into a strong and coherent story".
The book, which took Tiang seven years to write, had made headlines last year after part of a grant given to him to write it was withdrawn.
Speaking to The Straits Times over the phone, Tiang, 41, who is based in New York, said: "I wrote the novel because I felt there were narratives that had been left out of the Singapore story.
"I hope this novel draws attention to them... and, in a small way, helps us as a country to broaden our understanding of what it means to be Singaporean."
Fifty writers were shortlisted across 12 categories - fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry in Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil.
Each top winner received a cash prize of $10,000 and a plaque.
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