Sonny Liew has won the Singapore Literature Prize in the English Fiction category for The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. The National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) will give him a plaque and $10,000 in prize money.
Here’s more from the press release: “The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, which also won the Book of the Year accolade at the Singapore Book Awards, is masterpiece that weaves together a dizzying array of styles and forms to construct a moving portrait of a fictional comics artist, whilst examining the narratives behind the Singapore Story…Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, it was a New York Times Bestseller, and is due for release in France by Urban Comics and in Italy by BAO Publishing.”
Liew’s win marks the first time that a graphic novel claimed this award. Past winners of this award include Amanda Lee Koe’s Ministry of Moral Panic, Eddie Tay’s The Mental Life of Cities, and Simon Tay’s City Of Small Blessings.