Singapore Literature Prize organiser clarifies relationship with NLB

SINGAPORE — The organiser of the Singapore Literature Prize, the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS), has responded to the decision made by three judges to resign in protest of the National Library Board’s (NLB) decision to withdraw three children’s book titles.

Clarifying its relationship with the NLB, the NBDCS said: “Neither organisation is involved in the day-to-day decision making of the other.” The NBDCS noted that the NLB is just one of its 40 members and “apart from sending a representative to the NBDCS annual general meeting NLB does not play a role in the management of NBDCS”.

The competition will proceed and the NBDCS will endeavour to find replacements for the three judges.

Here is the statement in full:

The National Book Development Council Singapore (NBDCS) regrets the decision of three of the 36 judges involved in this year’s Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) to resign in protest of the recent decision of the National Library Board (NLB) to withdraw and pulp three children’s book titles.

However the NBDCS would like to clarify its relationship with the NLB. Neither organisation is involved in the day-to-day decision making of the other.

NBDCS is an association made up of 40 institutional and individual members, such as the Library Association of Singapore, the Association of Singapore Tamil Writers, Singapore Book Publishers Association, NTUC, and many others entities. The NLB is just one such member and apart from sending a representative to the NBDCS annual general meeting NLB does not play a role in the management of NBDCS.

Both the NBDCS and the SLP have an established history of judging writers and books on their literary merits and supporting books of literary merit regardless of the political or social themes they contain.

This year’s SLP competition will proceed as it is an important platform for showcasing the literary talents of Singapore to the wider literary world; as demonstrated by the subsequent success of several of the previous SLP winners such as Yeng Pway Ngon, Mohammed Latiff Mohammed, and Ma Elangkannan.

The NBDCS will endeavour to find replacements for the three judges who have withdrawn from judging the English Non-Fiction category in a timely manner so that the 16 entrants for that category can still participate and benefit from the competition.

The SLP is unique in the world for awarding prizes for works in four different languages: English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, and three disciplines: Poetry, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. This year SLP received a record breaking 182 entrants across the 12 prize categories.