It’s Singapore’s 59th birthday and this calls for a big celebration. Here’s a spotlight on 8 Singaporean authors who have written books that have been celebrated by readers all over.
Emily Lim-Leh
Emily Lim-Leh lost her voice to a rare voice affliction Spasmodic Dysphonia in 1998. In her journey to recover her lost voice, she found a God-given voice in writing when she was a winner in the Singapore Book Council’s Publishing Initiative in 2007 for her debut picture book. Emily has authored over forty children’s picture books. She is the first person outside North America to win three IPPY Awards in children’s books, and the first in Southeast Asia to win the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. Emily was named Mediacorp’s Singapore Woman Award Honoree for inspiring readers through her books. Little Hero is Emily’s first adventure in writing a children’s chapter book and is inspired by her family’s stories.
Jack Sim
Widely known as Mr Toilet, Jack Sim broke the global taboo around toilets and sanitation. He founded the World Toilet Organization (WTO), a global non-profit working towards a world with clean, safe toilets and sanitation for everyone, everywhere, at all times. Born in a slum in Singapore in 1957, he learned entrepreneurship and gumption from his uneducated mother who started a series of small businesses. He was also inspired by the gumption of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and grew up watching the amazing transformation of his country from third-world to first. His book The Gumption of Mr. Toilet is set to release end of August 2024 and will take you on his inspiring journey.
Uma Rudd Chia
Uma Rudd Chia is Executive Creative Director and Cofounder of KVUR, a boutique advertising agency specialising in beauty, fashion and innovation brands. She is a highly awarded creative and a sought-after global keynote speaker specialising on the topics of technology, innovation, women empowerment and creativity. Her book, The Spotted Zebra contains her life learnings from being different through a turn of events and life-changing encounters, and how she learned to embrace and accept her differences and become all that she is-wife, mother, keynote speaker, author, cofounder of Singapore’s coolest women run advertising agency and a notorious rule breaker.
H.Y. Poon
H Y Poon is a civil servant living in Singapore. In a few decades of service, he has held various appointments with government agencies working in an eclectic mix of areas such as manpower policy formulation, finance, investment promotion, enterprise development, and biodiversity conservation. Her book, A Mother’s Burden is a truly captivating story of a mentally disabled boy who is found dead in a small town and all signs point to his mother, a poor and ailing widow, as the one who caused his death. The story goes on with an investigator who digs deep to find the truth against the odds and, in the process, discovers his own worth in a hierarchical society.
Grace Chia
Grace Chia is the author of over ten books of prose and poetry. She has been nominated for the Mslexia Novel Competition and Epigram Books Fiction Prize longlists and shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize (Poetry) and Singapore Book Awards, the latter for her Penguin Random House SEA novel, The Arches of Gerrard Street. Her other book with us How To Hunger is a fascinating collection of short stories that talk about how humans are hungry for love, lust and loyalty.
Danielle Lim
Danielle Lim is an award-winning author whose latest novel, All Our Brave, Earthly Scars, was published in 2022. Her short story collection, And Softly Go the Crossings, won the Book of the Year as well as Best Literary Work in the Singapore Book Awards 2021. Another novel was shortlisted for Best Literary Work in the Singapore Book Awards 2019. Her memoir won the Singapore Literature Prize 2016 (non-fiction) and has been translated into Chinese and Tamil, and published in Taiwan and India. The Publishers Weekly (US) listed Danielle as one of Singapore’s top writers in 2016.
O Thiam Chin
O Thiam Chin is the author of three novels and six collections of short fiction. His debut novel won the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015. His work has appeared in Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Manoa, The Brooklyn Rail, QLRS, World Literature Today and elsewhere. He has published two books with Penguin Random House SEA, We Are Not Alone Here and The Dogs are extremely captivating stories that relay the workings and complexities of humans in heart-tugging ways.
Nadia Ayesha
Nadia Ayesha is an MA Creative Writing student at LASALLE College of the Arts. From her years of working in the non-profit sector, she learnt the value and meaning in every individual’s life story and was inspired to return to writing, her first love as a child. Her book Showers of Luck is inspired by a true story set in pre-war Singapore and talks about a couple who navigates societal judgment and challenges familial expectations in a brave attempt to start a new life together.
How many of these local authors have you read before?
