$20,000 prize for unpublished novel

$20,000 prize for unpublished novel

Epigram Books is offering a novel prize: $20,000 to the best unpublished novel in English sent to the company from now till Aug 31, as well as the opportunity for it to be published.

The Epigram Books Fiction Prize will be the richest here for such works and is open to Singapore citizens and permanent residents, as well as Singapore-born writers, wherever they are residing.

A winner will be announced at the Singapore Writers Festival later this year, says Mr Edmund Wee, 63, founder of the home-grown publishing imprint, adding that judges reserve the right not to award the prize if no submission is up to the mark.

The prize is no one-off to do with the country's 50th birthday celebrations, he adds.

"We spend about $1 million a year publishing up to 50 books, so it's going to cost me $20,000 anyway to do a book. If we get a good book, it'll be worth it in the long run."

He will chair the judging panel and will announce the other three members of the jury later in the year.

Mr Wee started Epigram Books in 1999, first publishing mountaineer David Lim's memoir, Mountain To Climb, then an account of Singapore's race to the South Pole, Southbound, by Lulin Reutens in 2001.

The imprint released about a book a year until 2009, when it began reprinting hard-to-find works of Singapore literature, from plays by Jean Tay and Ovidia Yu to the late Goh Poh Seng's novel The Immolation.

Epigram Books is behind some of Singapore's most successful writers, including Adeline Foo (of the best-selling The Diary Of Amos Lee series for children) and last year's Singapore Literature Prize winner Amanda Lee Koe and her short story collection Ministry Of Moral Panic.

For the past two years, the imprint has brought out more than 40 Singapore titles a year, from fiction for adults and children to books on cooking and photography, as well as memoirs.

Mr Wee is offering the prize for unpublished novels because he believes novels can reveal more about a country than news reports, saying that Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders taught him more about Pakistan than any press article could have.

Since he receives more compilations of short stories from writers than full-length works of fiction, he hopes a cash award will encourage more Singapore writers to work on their novels.

He says: "Singaporeans have one prize, the Singapore Literature Prize, once every two years, and that is for a published book."

That prize is organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore and supported by the National Arts Council.

He had thought to create an award just for Singapore citizens, but realised this would eliminate well-known Singapore-born writers such as Australian Boey Kim Cheng or even American Kevin Kwan, author of the comic novel about life in Singapore, Crazy Rich Asians (2013, HarperCollins), an international hit.

His long-term aim is to promote Singapore literature by sending in the novels he publishes for major international awards such as the annual Man Booker Prize.

He believes that without such international recognition, it will remain difficult to place and promote his books in stores here and overseas. "We have books that are good enough but do they sell? No," he says.

Winners of the Man Booker Prize tend to dominate bestseller lists in Singapore and elsewhere, while sales have been slow even here for the Singapore Literature Prize-winning Ministry Of Moral Panic.

The biennial Singapore Literature Prize is the country's biggest recognition for a single published book. Since last year, it has offered individual $10,000 awards for the best work of fiction, non- fiction and poetry in Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil.

From 1992 to 1999, the Singapore Literature Prize was given to an unpublished work of English fiction, which was printed by the now-defunct SNP Corporation.

Awards for unpublished work in Singapore include the arts council's biennial Golden Point Award for short stories and poetry, which awarded $10,000 to each first-prize winner in 2003.

A grant from the arts council also supports the creation of an original new literary work, or an adaptation or translation.

This is capped at $35,000 for a work period of up to 18 months. The grant, along with the Singapore Literature Prize and Golden Point Awards, can be given to Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

The National Book Development Council, which administers the Singapore Literature Prize, says it has been seeking a publishing partner to help with an award for unpublished adult books.

It administers two awards for unpublished children's books - the Scholastic Picture Book Award for picture books and the Scholastic Asian Book Award for chapter and young adult books.

The Asian arm of publisher Scholastic Books publishes the winning manuscript.

The council says in a statement: "An unpublished manuscript award would be a great addition to the series of awards we give.

We think it would be a great way to discover new and unknown talent.

Our experience suggests that awards for unpublished manuscripts are not sustainable unless publication of the winning work is guaranteed."

It gives the example of the now-defunct Man Asian Literary Prize, which began as an award for unpublished work in English in 2007.

But from 2011 to 2013, it was awarded to books already published in English so as to ride on international interest and generate more buzz and sales for the books.

Mr Wee says he did not know the council was looking for a publishing partner and went ahead with his prize because he did not wish to delay.

"I am not keen to wait any longer because you know as well that all writers need more time to write."

Writers Life! spoke to liked the idea of another literary award, but some wondered whether it would achieve its aim of encouraging more novels.

Poet and fiction writer Felix Cheong, 50, points out the range of literary grants and awards already available and says:

"There are already more than enough incentives for writers. If you want to write, you will, come hell or carrot. If you write purely for financial gain, then you're better off as a copywriter."

Writer Leonora Liow just had her first collection of fiction, Moth Stories, published by Ethos Books this January, 12 years after she won a Golden Point Award for a short story in English.

She says: "Winning the award was, of course, most gratifying. But it was not the reason I wrote and not winning it would not have prevented me from carrying on."

At the same time, she adds, more awards would be encouraging to writers, especially one that recognises that writing a novel is different from writing a collection of short stories, "much in the way sprinting calls for different muscle groups from marathon running".

Poet and graphic novelist Gwee Li Sui, 44, likes the idea of a guaranteed publishing deal along with the prize, but points out: "Among novels, short stories, poetry and play scripts, novels are always the least attempted. There could be practical reasons for this."

He also wonders what sort of writing this award would encourage, saying that talk about "the great Singaporean novel" would "invariably gravitate towards privileging nationalistic and social-realist writings".

He says: "Literature is far bigger than that and when we want to encourage writing, we really shouldn't proceed by limiting the genres wherein the imagination can play."

Mr Wee is on a mission to promote writing with clear links to Singapore. "It does not mean we won't publish stories about Malaysia or England, but if there is some link with Singapore, I would be more inclined to give it the prize," he says.

"This is the first year we're doing it, let's see what we get," he adds. "In five years, I want to get a book onto the Booker longlist. This seems to be the only way to get a breakthrough in bookstores for Singapore literature."

akshitan@sph.com.sg


This article was first published on March 10, 2015.
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