Jeremy Tiang


Jeremy Tiang is a Singaporean writer, translator and playwright based in New York City. Tiang won the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize for English fiction for his debut novel, State of Emergency, which traces leftist movements throughout Singapore's history.

Career

In 2009, Tiang won the National Arts Council's Golden Point Award for English fiction for his story Trondheim.
In 2016, his short story collection It Never Rains on National Day, which comprises 11 loosely connected stories about Singaporeans overseas and migrants in Singapore, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize.
In 2010, Tiang's idea for his first novel, titled State of Emergency, which depicts a family caught up in the leftist movements in Singapore's biggest political controversies throughout history, qualified for a grant by the National Arts Council. Under the Creation Grant Scheme, he would receive a total of $12,000. It took him seven years to write the novel but when he submitted the first draft to the council in 2016, the remainder of the grant was withdrawn – he had received $8,600 by then. At that time, Tiang was shocked as he was writing full-time and any additional money would be useful but decided to keep writing. His manuscript was subsequently shortlisted for the 2016 Epigram Books Fiction Prize where he received a cash prize of $5,000.
In 2018, he won the Singapore Literature Prize for English fiction for his debut novel State of Emergency. The Singapore Book Council which established and managed the Singapore Literature Prize said that Tiang's win was a "unanimous decision" by the judges.

Short story