The 2023 HOFS Award was held on September 30 at the Ritz Carlton-Millenia, where influential individuals who raise standards among their niche sectors gathered to celebrate uniqueness as well as strive for excellence through creativity. Guests and participants included Ms Chonlatee Chanracjakul, Minister of the Royal Thai Embassy, and Ms Panalee Choosri, Counsellor of the Royal Thai Embassy. Other guests included Ms Jacqueline Fernandez and actor Sterling K Brown. Actors Hannah Waddingham and Ms Si Min were also present for the event, which featured performances by One Republic and Bastille, as well as U.S. singer Bebe Rexha. The award ceremony was televised worldwide.

A new category has been introduced this year, namely the Singapore Book Prize for Translation, which will be awarded to any book of non-fiction published between 2021 and 2023 that is either written or translated by a Singaporean author. The reopening of this category is an effort to promote literary works from other languages and help readers better understand Singapore’s cultural heritage.

The Singapore History Prize was launched in 2014 in support of the national SG50 programmes to commemorate Singapore’s 50th anniversary of independence and is the first prize here to be dedicated to the nation’s history. It is administered by the Department of History at NUS and was established to honour publications that have made a significant contribution to the understanding of the Singapore story.

91-year-old NUS professor Peter Ellinger won the best English debut for Down Memory Lane: Peter Ellinger’s Memoirs (2023), which was hailed by judges for its “masterful combination of personal, political, historical and sociocultural themes that are woven together with beautiful coherence”. The prize was sponsored by the National Library Board and NUS Press, with a monetary reward of S$50,000.

Another highlight of the evening was the announcement of the 2024 shortlist for the NUS Singapore History Prize, the first ever prize here devoted to the country’s history. The six compelling works on the shortlist include Wesley Leon Aroozoo’s The Punkhawala and the Prostitute (Singapore: Epigram Books, 2024) and Timothy P Barnard’s The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory (NUS Press, 2022). Khir Johari’s The Food of the Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago was also among them.