English-language winners of the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize are:
English Fiction winner: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew
English Poetry co-winners:
I Didn't Know Mani Was a Conceptualist by Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde
The Lover's Inventory by Cyril Wong
English Non-Fiction co-winners:
The Sound of Sch: A Mental Breakdown, A Life Journey by Danielle Lim
When the Party Ends by Peh Shing Huei
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The winner of the 2016 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books, awarded every two years by the Polar Libraries Colloquy for "the best Arctic or Antarctic non-fiction books published throughout the world," is White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic by Stephen Bown (Merloyd Lawrence Books/Da Capo Press).
At its biennial conference, held last week in Fairbanks, Alaska, the Polar Libraries Colloquy cited White Eskimo as "the first full-scale biography of the explorer and ethnographer who opened up the culture, the language, and the life of the Arctic."
Two other books were awarded Honourary Mentions:
Mammals of Ungava and Labrador: the 1882-1884 Fieldnotes of Lucien M. Turner together with Inuit and Innu Knowledge, edited by Scott A. Heyes and Kristofer M. Helgen (Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press). This title is the first publication, after more than 125 years, of the natural history research of Smithsonian Institution Arctic scientist Lucien McShan Turner, who travelled to Ungava District (Northern Quebec and Labrador) in 1882 for the International Polar Year.
Antarctica: Music, Sounds and Cultural Connections by Bernadette Hince, Rupert Summerson and Arnan Wiesel (ANU Press). The judges said this book "demonstrates the intellectual and creative engagement of artists, musicians, scientists and writers."