We have been at the forefront when it comes to publishing literary fiction and non-fiction, having produced works that have won awards in Singapore and internationally too. We also distribute Southeast Asian literature across the globe.
We are an award-winning Singaporean publisher that isn’t afraid to turn something humdrum into witty imaginative publications. Providing inventive and radical publishing solutions that affect and delight the reader, we can transform the unglamorous sector of corporate literature into some of the most distinct publications out there.
Big, bold and different – if that’s what you want, you’ve come to the right place.
Epigram Books is the trade publishing arm of Epigram. It was started in July 2011 to champion Singaporean literature. In the years since, we have expanded our catalogue to also include stories from around Southeast Asia. We have published more than 350 fiction and non-fiction titles, which range from novels to children’s books, graphic novels to cookbooks, memoirs to short story collections.
Our books have won awards both locally and globally. Some of the award-winning titles include the graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (winner of three Eisner Awards); Lion City, Nimita’s Place, State of Emergency and Ministry of Moral Panic (Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction); The Way of Kueh and The Naysayer’s Book Club (Singapore Book Awards’ Book of the Year); and The Rock and the Bird and Where’s Grandma? (Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Awards).
In 2015, Epigram initiated the Epigram Books Fiction Prize, which offers S$25,000 and a publishing contract to one winning manuscript. We expanded the submissions to include writers from Southeast Asia, with Malaysian Joshua Kam becoming the first winner of this new edition of the Prize in 2020.
In 2022, Epigram announced a new short story competition focusing on the horror genre, the Storytel Epigram Horror Prize in partnership with audio books streaming giant Storytel.
In 2019, we collaborated with huggs coffee to open the Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, a concept store selling local-style food and drinks and Singapore books (written by Singaporeans, published in Singapore or written about Singapore).
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Learn about the Epigram Books Fiction Prize / Learn about the Storytel Epigram Horror Prize
The Epigram Bookshop is a one-stop online bookstore for all books published in Singapore, including award-winning titles, bestsellers, classics, recipe books, graphic novels, children’s books and more.
The focus is, of course, Singapore and all the titles are books that are either written by Singaporeans, published in Singapore or written about Singapore. We hope to bring Singapore titles to a wider, global audience. It doesn’t get more local than this.
Located at the Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, the Epigram Coffee Bookshop is the physical embodiment of the Epigram Bookshop. This brick-and-mortar concept store is a collaboration with Balestier Market Collective and, like the online version, is dedicated to books—across the genres—written by Singaporeans, published in Singapore, or written about Singapore. The coffee bookshop also serves coffee, along with kuehs, sandwiches, and brownies.