Prasanthi Ram, an Indian origin lecturer from the University of Nanyang technological University won the Singapore literature prize for English fiction for her short story -’Nine Yard Sarees’. It was her debut work which was published at the end of year 2023. Dr. Ram also graduated with a PhD in Creative Writing from the School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University.The Singapore Literature Prize is a biennial award in Singapore recognise outstanding published works by Singaporean authors in any of the four official languages: Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. The competition is organized by the Singapore Book Council (SBC) with the support of the National Art Council.The story explores a Tamil family’s experiences across Singapore, Sydney, New York and Connecticut. The award ceremony was held at Victoria Theatre on Tuesday. The judging panel, led by poet Cyril Wong, praised her writing as “skilful, assured, comedic at times, and profoundly moving.” Expressing gratitude, Ram said: “I’m so humbled that the judges saw the merit.” Prasanthi said of her book, lauded by The Straits Times as “one of the best debuts of Singapore fiction”: “I am completely in shock. I’m so humbled that the judges saw merit in Nine Yard Sarees, especially since I wrote this manuscript while I was a caregiver to my late father. “I hope that more writers experiment with the short story cycle form because it was such a joy being able to dive into so many perspectives and contexts in a single work.”