Epigram Books | 雋語出版

🎁Recommended for ages 7 and above

Winner of Singapore Book Awards 2018, Best Middle Grade/Young Adult Title

Why do Indians hang mango leaves in doorways? Why is it called a mama shop? Where does roti prata come from? We provide the answers—and useful tips as well—to some of the most-asked questions young Singaporeans have about the Indian community, including why some Indians wear turbans.

Why Do Indians Dot Their Foreheads? is part of a series of four illustrated handbooks, each with 20 questions and answers to promote understanding of the different races and cultures in Singapore.

🎁Recommended for ages 7 and above

Winner of Singapore Book Awards 2018, Best Middle Grade/Young Adult Title

How can you tell if someone is Eurasian? What is Eurasian food? Is kaya a “Eurasian jam”? We provide the answers—and useful tips as well—to some of the most-asked questions young Singaporeans have about Eurasians, including why we don’t have a “Eurasiatown”.

Why Do Eurasians Love Sugee Cake? is part of a series of four illustrated handbooks, each with 20 questions and answers to promote understanding of the different races and cultures in Singapore. 

🎁 Recommended for ages 3 and above

When Yusuf is told to do a show-and-tell activity on his family's favourite colours, he is unsure if he should ask Uncle Daniel, who is blind. But Yusuf soon learns that Uncle Daniel knows of many colours; he even has a favourite. Guess what it is!  An engaging story that helps to create awareness of the blind and visually impaired.

Sang Nila Utama saw a lion…or did he?

Come and experience the untold side of Singapore's past in this non-fiction series. The weird and wild history of our island nation is revealed in engaging stories that are sure to excite, shock and thrill readers of all ages!

In Twisted Temasek, discover obscure stories from Singapore's pre-colonial history, from Rajendra Chola I's adventure into a mermaid kingdom and Sang Nila Utama's arrival in Lion City to tales Singapore's early kings and legendary children like Hang Nadim and Radin Mas Ayu.

Winner for the 2024 Singapore Book Awards (Best Illustrated, Non-Fiction)

Explore Singapore’s identity presented on stage with this complete, detailed look at Wild Rice’s beginnings and canonical plays.

A true labour of love, Twenty Years of Wild Rice celebrates all the magic and mayhem, the joy and the passion that have gone into Wild Rice's past 20 years of making theatre for and about Singapore.

Packed with intimate insights, thought-provoking interviews, archival photographs, behind-the-scenes stories and more, this full colour visual journey is one book no theatre lover should do without.

Winner for the Singapore Book Awards 2025 - Best Young Person's Fiction Title

Talking plants, evil scientists, and mobile book vans—Maizey doesn't know where to start!

Imagination loss has hit everyone over 35, but 11-year-old Maizey Lee has bigger problems that that. Her life is turned upside down when her father disappears in a fire and mother decides to take them globe-trotting in a library on wheels. She has to get back to Singapore in time to sit for PSLE, or she'll be stuck in primary school forever! But with her mother determined to visit the world book capital to keep her Imagination alive, her plant friend Curie causing havoc with her powers, and an sinister pharmaceautical company chasing after them, will she ever be able to get her normal life back?

In this first foray into the world of travelling libraries, talking plants and scientific espionage, it's up to Maizey to save Imagination. As she goes swimming with turtles, plucks coconuts with monkeys and races across Bangkok on a far-too-small scooter, Maizey is about to learn that every encounter she picks up along the way will guide her to understand the power of stories and the importance in keeping Imagination alive.

Shortlisted for Best Young Adults' Title for Singapore Book Awards 2016
Shortlisted for the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2015

After a successful fundraising effort, I was off to Sarawak, Malaysia with my bros Alvin and Anthony for an exciting jungle trek! And, more importantly, I’d get to see my dear friend Jolin. (Mum calls her the “object of my infatuation”.)

Our guide, Jolin’s weird “jungle man” Uncle Jufri, warned us to never let our guard down, for the rainforest is full of secrets and surprises. After getting drenched in a thunderstorm, and some icky encounters with mussels, toads, leeches and ants, we thought we’d seen and survived it all. But then there were those footprints, BIGGER THAN A HUMAN’S, that just couldn’t be explained.

Longlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2020

In this dystopian KL, a faceless corporation manages the city and hope is as toxic as the air.

Abandoned by his father, 19-year-old Zachary Ti learns to fend for himself in the new, gritty world of KL, a district overrun by tinheads that are issuing capital punishment for the slightest of offences. When he accidentally kills two of the cyborgs, Zach is forced to join an elite rebel faction whose methods are more than questionable. Soon he is sent back into the fray of KL—but this time he is a wanted man.

Winner of Singapore Book Awards 2022 (Best Audiobook)

Timothy Pong has enough trouble at home without throwing his first year of secondary school into the mix. The Pong family only interact with each other through digital machines rather than human contact. Twelve-year-old Timothy is too young to own a phone, according to his mum, so he hasn’t actually spoken to his family in years as he can’t WhatsApp his parents or Snapchat his older sister.

Even worse, the most menacing bully in school, who also just happens to be the prettiest girl Timothy has ever seen, has plucked him out as her new favourite target. Luckily, Timothy has a few ideas up his sleeve to survive Secondary One, as well as the help of his undernourished friend Rudy, who, when not helping Timothy, can be found eating grass in the school field.

When their first plan goes horribly wrong and Timothy is caught on camera with his pants down – the most embarrassing three minutes of fame ever, the two friends must up their game if they’re to expose the conniving Bella, ace their Science project, and learn how an old-fashioned camera they first mistook for a hairdryer might be the answer to their prayers.

A new whimsical series puts an imaginative spin on age-old idioms.

In this first book of our new series, I Love Idioms, Tilly’s friends pay her a visit, only to find her under the weather—literally! Poor Tilly, she’s in bed, miserable under the dark, brooding clouds and cold, menacing rain. Her friends rally to rescue her. But can they weather the storm to help?

A fun and creative story with quirky illustrations that teaches children the meaning of the idiom “under the weather”.

🎁 Recommended for ages 3 and above

Tiko and his toy lizard are inseparable, until he chances upon a real lizard. Tiko traps it, names it Dragon and convinces his parents that he’s responsible enough to look after it. But keeping an outdoor lizard as an indoor pet requires dedication, and Tiko is too distracted by computer games. Now, what is to become of poor Dragon?

A vibrantly illustrated portrayal of childhood antics and a reminder of pet responsibility.

An omnibus of groundbreaking Singaporean playscripts.

Goh Poh Seng played an active role in the arts scene of post-independence Singapore. He was a pioneer of Singaporean drama, and the author of what is considered the first local English-language novel, If We Dream Too Long (1972). However, despite him winning the Cultural Medallion, his three playscripts have never been published…until now.

Three Plays—consisting of The Moon Is Less Bright (1964), When Smiles Are Done (1965) and The Elder Brother (1966)—rescues these dramatic works from obscurity, and presents them on the sixtieth anniversary of first being staged.

Those Who Can’t, Teach turns the spotlight on the madcap lives of teachers and students in a typical secondary school in Singapore. As the teachers struggle daily to nurture and groom, the students prefer to hang out and “chillax”. With upskirting and Facebooking, griping and politicking, school takes on a whole new meaning as the colourful characters struggle to prove that those who can, teach. 

Written by Singapore’s most prolific playwright Haresh Sharma, Those Who Can’t, Teach was first staged by The Necessary Stage in 1990 to critical acclaim. Twenty years later, Sharma revisits this classic to revitalise it for the Singapore Arts Festival 2010, transforming it into a powerful portrayal of the pressures and challenges facing teachers (and students) in schools in the 21st century.

A pair of twins tries desperately to survive their education. A sentient oyster ponders the concept of making time. An unemployed man devises a social experiment with ants. A runaway sees a vision. From the 1990’s to a future where people access information through chips implanted in their heads, from the Singaporean heartland to London, San Francisco and the moon, these stories hold in tension the strangeness of displacement and a deep yearning for connection in their relentless search for who and what to call home.

Longlisted for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize

Charlie has always been too tall, too skinny and too wild to ever be considered a proper nyonya. Her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are always looking on in disapproval, yet Charlie knows she must follow her heart in career and in love. That becomes complicated when three men fight for her affection, a major smuggling ring must be investigated and the paparazzi cannot get enough of her!

Sequel to There Is No Such Thing as a Skinny Bibik, longlisted for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize.

Nonya Charlie has found love, or so she thinks.

Rebel that she is, Charlie Neo has chosen love over her family when she decides to leave Singapore and move to Penang to be with her ex-spy boyfriend. Charlie struggles to build a new life, working various jobs, including the role as assistant for a TV news anchor, and reuniting with a grandaunt who is her own brand of hot-blooded bibik. She becomes embroiled in a kidnapping of two genius hackers and gets into trouble involving money laundering, sending her running back to her Peranakan roots.

🎁Recommended for ages 3 and above

There was a Peranakan woman who lived in a shoe. 
She made so many nyonya kueh, she didn’t know what to do.

In this book of modernised nursery rhymes, original rhymes are recreated with local flavour and humour.

Traditional food, local places and festivals are the essence of the rhymes! This is a book that resonates with our time, country and culture, and will surely last for generations to come.

Recommended by the National Library Board Singapore and Ministry of Communications and Information

A woman learns of a friend’s illness and wonders if she ever truly knew him. A boy who sees ghosts heeds the advice of a fortune-teller, with surprising consequences. A girl wakes up and realises everybody in her Bedok neighbourhood has vanished. From Cyril Wong, award-winning author of The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza, comes another beautiful book about characters in crisis, with two stories crossing intriguingly into creative autobiography.

Superworm solves the mystery of a missing eye.

When Mr Pig’s left eye disappears, Superworm springs into action! A sneaky snake with a habit of hoarding seems to be behind it all. But as more things go missing, Superworm discovers an unexpected truth about the snake—one that changes everything.

A zany, adventure-filled graphic novel that tells a heartwarming tale of friendship and forgiveness.

🎁Recommended for ages 3 and above

In this latest instalment of the popular picture book series, Asia's Lost Legends, the story travels to the steppes of Mongolia, where lives a young fiddle player named Suho and his beloved horse, Khuur. The two friends are insearable until a cruel king tries to tear them apart. But the bond between Suho and Khuur is so strong that it cannot be broken. Instead, it inspires the creation of Mongolia’s national instrument.

Finalist for the 2015 Epigram Books Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the Singapore Book Awards 2017 (Best Fiction Title)
Shortlisted for the Popular Readers' Choice Awards 2016 English (Adult) Books category
The Straits Times Book Of The Month (August 2016)
Shortlisted for Singapore Literature Prize 2018 

Pin must not become like her mother, but nobody will tell her why. She seeks clues in Ma’s cooking when she’s not fighting other battles—being a bursary girl at an elite school and facing racial taunts from the bus uncle. Then her meddlesome grandmother moves in, installing a portrait of a watchful Sikh guru and a new set of house rules. Old secrets begin to surface but can Pin handle learning the truth?

In veteran playwright Desmond Sim’s first collection for students, food and family ground seven heartwarming plays as sons and daughters, fathers and grandmothers fight, heal and find love in the kitchen and around the dining table. This collection includes Drunken Prawns, winner of the first Hewlett Packard/Action Theatre Ten-Minute Play Contest, and other critically acclaimed plays such as Teochew Porridge and The Durian Man and His Daughters, with a foreword by Dr. K.K. Seet.

Shortlisted for NUS Singapore History Prize 2021
Winner of Singapore Literature Prize 2018, Fiction
Shortlisted for Singapore Book Awards 2018, Best Fiction Title
Finalist for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2016

Siew Li leaves her husband and children in Tiong Bahru to fight for freedom in the jungles of Malaya. Decades later, a Malaysian journalist returns to her homeland to uncover the truth of a massacre committed during the Emergency. And in Singapore, Siew Li's niece Stella finds herself accused of being a Marxist conspirator.

Jeremy Tiang's debut novel dives into the tumultuous days of leftist movements and political detentions in Singapore and Malaysia. It follows an extended family from the 1940s to the present day as they navigate the choppy political currents of the region. What happens when the things that divide us also bind us together?

Christmas in Singapore is special, with families all over the island celebrating in their own unique ways. Come join a young boy and read all about his family traditions. From visiting Orchard Road and marvelling at all the Christmas lights to leaving cookies and carrots in anticipation of Santa and Rudolf—there is so much fun to be had!

With bold and beautiful illustrations that capture the spirit of Christmas, this story reminds us of the importance of family and family traditions.

Shortlisted for 2019 Singapore Books Awards Best Middle Grade/Young Adult Title
Finalist for the 2017 Epigram Books Fiction Prize

Sofia is an ordinary schoolgirl living in a future Singapore where the population is divided into three social strata. When she inadvertently unlocks the gateway to a new world, she realises she must escape the government’s radar. She ventures into the lowest rung of society, the Voids, and meets with the eccentric Uncle Kirk and the resourceful Father Lang. While on the run, she learns why her father disappeared seven years ago and why the new world exists in the first place.

Probing and thrilling, this novel explores worlds within worlds and reinvents the creation myth.

Join Sly the Fly on a mischievous adventure as he spreads the flu all over town. From buzzing bees to singing bears, no one is safe from his whirlwind of sneezes.

A playful, rhyming tale about germs and good manners.

From one of Singapore’s most garlanded playwrights comes his first collection of published plays, including Autumn Tomyam, winner of Best Original Script and Play of the Year in the 2002 DBS Life! Theatre Awards. Guaranteed to challenge readers’ prejudices, Desmond Sim’s Six Plays is a bold and often hilarious exploration of sexuality, polygamy and love in all its guises.

The Sisters Islands and Pulau Senang: two satellite islands off the coast of Singapore, small but rich in story. This volume brings together two remarkable plays by Jean Tay, Sisters and Senang, which explore these two islands through turbulent events in the 1960s.

Sisters: The Untold Stories of the Sisters Islands blends a real-life murder with creation myth. The play alternates between two stories: one of Mina and Lina, the two sisters upon which the myth of the Sisters Islands is supposedly based; and the other of the shocking case in 1965 of Jenny Cheok, killed by her boyfriend Sunny Ang, which also involved her half-sister Irene.

Senang covers the prison riots on Pulau Senang in 1963. The island was used for a bold experiment, led by Superintendent Daniel Dutton, an Irishman who believed he could reform the inmates through labour, and abolished the use of arms to police them. This is one man’s attempt to create a utopian penal colony, which tragically led to his violent end.