SINGAPORE – Playwright and author Myle Yan Tay swept the Singapore Book Awards (SBA) 2024, winning Best Literary Work and Book of the Year for his debut novel catskull (2023).

Organised by the Singapore Book Publishers Association (SBPA), the award was launched in 2012 for books published in Singapore, with the aim of highlighting the quality of the published works.

Accepting the award on behalf of her son, who is in Chicago, Illinois, Mrs Meena Tay says: “I am extremely proud of him. Notwithstanding the fact that I am his mother, I really enjoyed the book. It’s got so much to say about life in Singapore, being young in Singapore, the education system and how we treat our migrant workers. I’m just gobsmacked that it won both awards.”

Laughing, she adds: “I’ve been messaging the family group chat with updates and everyone has responded except for him, so he may still be asleep.”

Published by Ethos Books, the dark story follows a teenager named Ram who becomes a vigilante, fighting the injustices he sees in Singapore. It has also been shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize.

In her review of the book for The Straits Times, Olivia Ho noted that Tay “has an unerring ear for the diction of the Singaporean teenager” and called the book “a nuanced psychological portrait”.

Best Non-Fiction Title went to Not Without Us: Perspectives On Disability And Inclusion, edited by Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Meng Ee Wong and Dan Goodley. The collection of essays challenges the ways in which people research, analyse and think about disability in daily life, as well as what it means to live with a...