The Prince of Wales Visits Singapore For the Earthshot Prize
The British heir to the throne is visiting Singapore for the second time in his life. The trip is about the Prince of Wales’s Earthshot Prize, which is a part of his Royal Foundation charity and calls for solutions to climate change in ten years or less. William launched the prize in 2021, based on President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 moonshot challenge, which he and his partners hope to replicate with a push to reduce the effects of global warming on the planet. The heir was in town on Tuesday night for the award ceremony, where he and fellow presenters—including actor Sterling K. Brown and actresses Hannah Waddingham and Mbatha—appeared to embrace sustainability. The glitzy event featured a tree planted in the honor of William and the winner, kiteboarder Max Maeder, who used the money to buy a wind turbine that’s already reducing his household energy use.
In line with the prize’s theme, he and other presenters, including Singapore ministers and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, walked a green carpet at the ceremony in a theater owned by state-owned Media Corp., which also hosted the performers One Republic and Bastille and a performance by U.S. singer Bebe Rexha. William wore an old dark green blazer by Alexander McQueen and other members of the presenters, including Ardern, walked in dresses by Stella McCartney, known for her sustainable fashion.
The prize’s shortlist for 2024 includes a number of fiction and poetry titles, with some writers making their debut in the competition. Novelist Myle Yan Tay was nominated for his book catskull, while Cultural Medallion recipient Suchen Christine Lim is up for her book Dearest Intimate. The nonfiction category features books with a personal slant, such as Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Glam (2019, available here), by Hidayah Amin, whose memoir of her childhood in a heritage royal building in the city’s historic district brings to light what she describes as an “overlooked neighborhood.”
This year, the prize is adding another component—a Readers’ Favorite exercise where the public votes online for their favorite shortlisted title. The results will be announced in October. Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the NUS Asia Research Institute, who proposed the prize, wrote in a Straits Times column that nations need shared imaginations to hold societies together, and historical narratives are key to this.
Shelly Bryant is a writer and translator who divides her time between Shanghai and Singapore. She has translated books from Chinese for Penguin Books, Epigram Publishing, and the National Library Board in Singapore, and edited poetry anthologies for Alban Lake and Celestial Books. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012. She is currently working on a book about contemporary Singapore literature. In addition, she is an assistant professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Follow her on Twitter @sshellyb.