Dr Chua Chee Lay, former Mandarin tutor for LKY, wins S.E.A. Write Award
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Dr Chua Chee Lay will receive the S.E.A. Write Award at an awards ceremony in Bangkok on Aug 10.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHUA CHEE LAY
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SINGAPORE – Chinese-language poet, academic and educator Chua Chee Lay – who was once a Mandarin tutor for the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew – will receive the S.E.A. Write Award at an awards ceremony in Bangkok on Aug 10.
Established in 1979, this prestigious annual award is presented to writers from Asean countries who are chosen by their peers in each country.
Former Singaporean recipients of the multilingual prize include English-language novelist Catherine Lim, Chinese-language writer Yeng Pway Ngon, and bilingual poet and playwright Elangovan.
Dr Chua, 65, is the author of several books of microfiction, essays, children’s verses and poetry collections, including Melody From Foreign Lands, which was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018.
He is also the editor of more than 30 books, including both the English and Chinese editions of Keeping My Mandarin Alive: Lee Kuan Yew’s Language Learning Experience (2005).
In a press statement from the Singapore Book Council, Dr Chua says: “Writing has been my way of seeing others, of seeing the world and, the most special moments, of seeing myself. Literature often lets us see the forest when life would have us focused on the trees.”
He tells The Straits Times that winning a prize is a rare and welcome change for someone more used to judging awards, like the Singapore Literature Prize or the Cultural Medallion.
“I am extremely happy because I seldom take part in competitions,” says Dr Chua, who is director of education and chief operating officer (China) at KinderWorld International Education Group.
The son of two Chinese teachers, he studied at Parry Primary School and River Valley High School, and considers himself a “student from the last generation of the Chinese-educated in Singapore”.
He was part of the inaugural batch at the National University of Singapore in 1980 and received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He went on to become a veteran scholar of language and now actively promotes Chinese-language literature in Singapore.
During the pandemic, Dr Chua founded the 5G Literature Network, a free and not-for-profit online database that catalogues more than 10,000 works from over 100 Chinese-language Singaporean writers.
The website also includes many of his cross-disciplinary initiatives, such as Nanyang New Poetry Music, where Chinese-language poems are given a new lease of life as music and shared online.
Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (left) took Mandarin classes from Dr Chua Chee Lay.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE
“A person should not limit himself to his language or area. He should always explore other possibilities of creation,” says Dr Chua, who also hopes to expand the scope of the 5G Literature Network to other languages.
He adds that winning this award will push him to create longer works, such as a novella. He hopes that this new work will take up two of his longstanding interests – language and technology – to narrate aspects of Singaporean life.
Dr Chua will attend the awards ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel – the event’s first physical edition since 2019 – in Bangkok with fellow Singaporean writers Simon Tay and Nadiputra, who received the award in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
He says: “It’s very colourful because they are all using their mother tongues to create their literature. I would like to take this opportunity to understand different countries and cultures.”
