by Gwee Li Sui
M. BALAKRISHNAN (MA ELANGKANNAN சிங்கை மா இளங்கண்ணன்) [Cultural Medallion, 2005]
Born in 1938, Ma Elangkannan has published numerous novels and short story collections in Tamil. Best known for highlighting the plight of the working class, he is the people’s writer. Undoubtedly popular, he also received due recognition when he received the Cultural Medallion in 2005 and was the first Tamil-language writer to get the Southeast Asian Writers Award in 1982. His works have been widely anthologised in newspapers and literary publications, adapted for radio and television, and translated into English, Malay, and Turkish.
NADIPUTRA [Cultural Medallion, 1986]
Playwright, director, producer, and actor, Almahdi Al-Haj Ibrahim – more popularly known as Nadiputra – has more than three hundred stage, radio, and television plays and poems to his name. He was a producer, director, and scriptwriter for the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (now MediaCorp) from 1983 to 2000. In 1985, he founded Theatre Nadi for children and, in 1986, received the Cultural Medallion. He most recently wrote, produced, and directed Lorong Buangkok, a semi-musical drama inspired by the last surviving kampung in Singapore.
NATALIE HENNEDIGE [Young Artist Award, 2007]
Natalie Hennedige is the Artistic Director of Cake Theatrical Productions. A recipient of the Young Artist Award in 2007 and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Culture Award in 2010, Hennedige conceptualises, writes, and directs works in theatre and other media. Constantly collaborating with artists from across disciplines such as visual arts, film and video, performance art, and dance, Hennedige engineers contemporary works that are artistically adventurous and defy classification, playing at conventional performance venues, unusual spaces of creative experimentation, and in public spaces to create performance-based experiences and theatrical spectacles.
SURATMAN MARKASAN [Cultural Medallion, 2012]
Suratman was born on 29 December 1930. He was a Specialist Inspector in the Ministry of Education in 1976 and became Assistant Director, Malay and Tamil Studies at the Ministry of Education, Singapore, in 1980. A year later, he was appointed as a lecturer at the Institute of Education. His books include Perempuan Kerudung Hitam (1991); Penghulu Yang Hilang Segala-galanya (1998), which has been translated into English as Penghulu (2012); Kembali Kepada Al-Quran (2000); and Puisi-puisi Perjalanan (2013). He received the Southeast Asian Writers Award in 1989, the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Art Literary Award in 1997, the Nusantara Literary Award in 1999, the Anugerah Tun Seri Lanang in 1999, the Cultural Medallion in 2012, and the Mastera Literary Award in 2014.
T. SASITHARAN [Cultural Medallion, 2012]
Thirunalan Sasitharan is the Director of the Intercultural Theatre Institute, formerly the Theatre Training and Research Programme. Together with the late Kuo Pao Kun, he established TTRP back in 2000. He was the Artistic Director of The Substation from 1996 to 2000 and a theatre and visual arts critic with The Straits Times from 1988 to 1996. Sasitharan has been an actor, performer, and producer in Singaporean theatre for thirty-five years. He writes and lectures on art, theatre, and culture. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2012.
TAN MEI CHING [Young Artist Award, 1997]
Tan Mei Ching writes novels, short stories, plays, children’s books, and creative non-fiction. A recipient of the Young Artist Award, she has received writing awards for her books Beyond the Village Gate and Crossing Distance and won first prizes for her short stories and a play. Her stories have been published in US literary journals and in anthologies. Her plays have been staged by theatres in Singapore and published in anthologies. Towards the Blue: Adventures of a City Wimp tells with humour her journeys in the Canadian wilderness. She has written over a hundred commissioned books for children and written and designed multimedia content, including content for multiplayer online games. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in English-Creative Writing from the University of Washington.
TOH HSIEN MIN [Young Artist Award, 2010]
Toh Hsien Min has published three collections of poetry, most recently the Singapore Literature Prize-shortlisted Means to an End (2008). His work has also been published in periodicals such as London Magazine, the London Review of Books, and Poetry Salzburg Review as well as anthologies such as Carcanet’s Oxford Poets 2013 and W. W. Norton’s Language for a New Century. He has read at international literary festivals such as the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Finland’s Runokuu Poetry Festival.
TROY CHIN [Young Artist Award, 2011]
Troy Chin is a Singaporean writer and artist best known for his ongoing autobiographical comic book series The Resident Tourist, begun in 2007; the slice-of life, four-volume comic strip series, Loti (2009–2012); and the music industry satire, Bricks in the Wall (2012).
YENG PWAY NGON 英培安 [Cultural Medallion, 2003]
Yeng Pway Ngon is a poet, novelist, playwright, and critic who has published twenty-five books: five novels, two collections of short stories, three volumes of poetry, two collections of stage plays, eleven volumes of essays, and a collection each of social critiques and literary critiques. He received the Cultural Medallion in 2003. His novels 骚动 [Unrest], 与我自己的二三事 [Trivialities about Me and Myself], and 画室 [Art Studio] won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2004, 2008, and 2012 respectively.
CHEW KOK CHANG (ZHOU CAN 周粲) [Cultural Medallion, 1990]
Zhou Can published his first collection of poems in 1954 as a teenager. Today, he is a veteran in the Chinese literary circles, having written, translated, edited, and published eighty-six books in Chinese prose and poetry. His simple yet profound poems cover a wide range of themes, including the depiction of nature and the universe, history, epoch, and the people and life in Singapore. His works are widely acclaimed in Singapore and in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. For his outstanding achievements and contributions to literature in Singapore, he was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1990.
About the Editors
GWEE LI SUI is a poet, a graphic artist, and a literary critic. His works of verse include Who Wants to Buy a Book of Poems? (1998), One Thousand and One Nights (2014), and The Other Merlion and Friends (2015). He wrote Singapore’s first full-length graphic novel in English, Myth of the Stone (1993), which has since been re-released in an expanded twentieth-anniversary edition. A familiar name in Singapore’s literary scene, Gwee has written and lectured on a range of cultural subjects. He edited Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary Singaporean-Malaysian Literature II (2009), Telltale: Eleven Stories (2010), and Man/Born/Free: Writings on the Human Spirit from Singapore (2011) and wrote FEAR NO POETRY!: An Essential Guide to Close Reading (2014).
TAN CHEE LAY is an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University and the Deputy Executive Director of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language. He has lived in Singapore, Taipei, and Cambridge and studied a wide range of subjects from Chinese literature and English Studies to Business Administration. A founding member of the Singapore National Poetry Festival, he has published twenty creative writing and scholarly books to date and received the Young Artist Award and the Singapore Youth Award. His recent creative publications include a poetry collection Original Poetics (2012), a collection of short stories Hiccups in the Family (2013), a children’s picture book Sleepless (2013), and a collection of letters Sidgwick Writings (2014).
SA’EDA BTE BUANG is a Senior Lecturer-cum-Assistant Head of the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group and the Head of the Malay Language and Culture Division, at Singapore’s National Institute of Education. Her research interests include comparative literature and literature education, Malay civilisation, faith-based education, and educational equity. She has published chapters, edited books, and presented papers on literature at both local and international conferences. Sa’eda has won the literary prize awarded by the Singapore Malay Language Council for her poetry in 2003 and for both her fiction and poetry in 2005. Currently, she is an Assoc
iate Editor of the international journal Asia Pacific Journal of Education and sits on the International Advisory Board of International Journal of Islamic Studies and Arabic Language Education and Journal of Educational Studies.
AZHAGIYA PANDIYAN is the Deputy Editor of Tamil Murasu, Singapore’s only Tamil newspaper. He has previously held senior posts in public relations, academia, management, broadcasting, and software development. He is also the author of two highly popular Tamil books: வரலாற்றில் இன்று [Today in History] and வானம் வசப்படுமே [You Can Reach For the Skies], which were originally produced as radio programmes. His first radio programme won an industry award for excellence. In 2005, Pandiyan was selected as one of twelve celebrity icons for Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement by the National Library Board. A recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship from the British High Commission in 1998, he holds a Master’s degree in media studies from the University of Sussex and a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore.