An Olympic gold medal carries with it a cash prize of one million Singapore dollars. But for kiteboarder Max Maeder and swimmer Joseph Schooling, the winnings will carry an additional twist: They are both eligible to claim a bonus payout under the country’s Major Games Award Programme. The scheme offers financial incentives to athletes from the country who win medals at the Olympic and Asian Games, Commonwealth and South East Asian Games.

The winners of this year’s Singapore prize were announced at a ceremony in the city-state’s National Museum of Singapore on Tuesday. The inaugural NUS Singapore History Prize was created to mark the nation’s 50th anniversary and aims to spur interest in and understanding of its rich history. Kishore Mahbubani, the former Singapore diplomat who chaired the prize’s five-member jury panel and set up the competition with an anonymous donor, said at a media conference that the biggest challenge to the island now is developing its “national identity” through a strong sense of shared history.

This year’s six shortlisted entries for the Singapore prize are a mix of non-fiction and historical fiction. They include Khir Johari’s The Food Of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels Through The Archipelago, a tome that took 14 years to write and weighs in at an impressive 3.2kg; and Home Is Where We Are, by a pair of childhood friends who founded TOTO, a multi-billion lottery game.

Britain’s Prince William will travel to Singapore next month to name the winners of his Earthshot prize, a global competition launched three years ago to find solutions for climate change. The prince will hold a series of events, including a ‘Earthshot Week’ that will see the winners and finalists gather in the city to discuss how they can scale up their environmental solutions.

Shelly Bryant is a poet, writer and translator who divides her time between Shanghai and Singapore. She has translated work from the Chinese for Penguin Books, Epigram Publishing, HSRC and Giramondo Books, and edited poetry anthologies for Alban Lake and Celestial Books. She has also written extensively about contemporary Chinese literature and culture for various publications, including the New York Times. She has won numerous awards, including the Singapore Book Council’s Achievement award. She is a member of the editorial board of Words Without Borders.