The Singapore Prize is an biennial award that honors works of literature, fiction, nonfiction and poetry written in any of Singapore’s four official languages. For its inaugural year this year, 12 top prizes of up to $10,000 each in Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil were offered as top awards by this program.

On Saturday night, Earthshot announced its inaugural awards in a grand ceremony held at Media Corp’s theater. To underscore its sustainability theme, William donned a 10-year-old dark green Alexander McQueen blazer that had been worn to an Earthshot event 10 years earlier and presented it along a “green carpet.” Hannah Waddingham and Sterling K Brown co-hosted with bands One Republic and Bastille performing as well as US singer Bebe Rexha. Ministers from both Singapore as well as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who serves on Earthshot board attended.

NUS Press publisher Philip Lee noted during the ceremony that these prizes aim to highlight writers whose work was “innovative, imaginative and transformative” within their genres. Furthermore, it seeks to boost Singapore’s publishing industry – one of Asia’s premier markets for English-language books.

John Miksic, an archaeologist who won first place in English-language category with his book Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea 1300-1800 was honored with an award. Nature’s Colony: Empire, Nation and Environment in Singapore Botanic Gardens by Timothy P Barnard was among several NUS Press titles on shortlist; others included Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and Modern Singapore by Loh Kah Seng as well as Sembawang & Home Is Where We Are by Jeremy Tiang which explores leftist political movements from 1970s Singapore.

Kishore Mahbubani, one of the distinguished fellows at NUS and a member of the Prize Jury, expressed great pleasure with both the results and quality of books that made the shortlist. In particular, he noted how authors used history as a way to analyze contemporary issues.

Voted on by the public and awarded to a book which “explicitly addresses Singaporeans’ concerns”, this prize makes an exceptional addition to our long history of excellence awards. This year’s award, made possible through an endowment from NUS totaling S$500,000, was named in honour of Christopher Bathurst KC who passed away in 2009. As senior counsel at Fountain Court Chambers in London, Mr. Bathurst had an established international law practice, specializing in arbitration law and building up an impressive clientele throughout Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore. He is well known as an author of many noteworthy judgments and was one of the founding members of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, British Academy, Commonwealth Writers Prize by British Council in 1998 for “The Last Frontier”, and later honored fellow of St Anne’s College Oxford.