Ng Yi-Sheng

His poems have been published in the poetry anthologies First Words, onewinged, No Other City and Love Gathers All, as well as the journals the2ndRule, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Softblow, Quarto, Asian Journal and Queer. In 1998, he won first prize in the NUS Poetry Competition, and in 2003, fared similarly at the Writers' Week Poetry slam. His performed plays include Serve (The Ordinary Theatre), Snake (Stage Right), Redhill Blues (Creative Arts Alumni Programme, Republic Polytechnic), Hungry (Theatreworks, Singapore Polytechnic, Anderson Secondary School and International Islamic University, Malaysia). One of his plays formed the core of Poetic Licence, a performance poetry production by STAGES presented in 2002 and 2005. In August 2006, he published a collection of gay, lesbian and bisexual Singaporeans' coming out stories, SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century. In October 2006, he published his first collection of poetry, Last Boy, which won the Singapore Literature Prize. In 2007, Ng completed his work on 251, a play about the life of Singaporean porn star Annabel Chong and Georgette, a musical about the artist Georgette Chen. In 2018, Ng published his first collection of short stories, Lion City, which won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2020. The Straits Times said: "This collection takes apart the tropes trumpeted ad infinitum about Singapore - the Lion City, gone from fishing village to having great food and a world-class airport - and reveals the magic of myth that underpins them all. The stories, with their subtle explorations of colonialism, capitalism and alienation, are delightful and discomfiting in equal measure." In 2025, Ng published his first novel, Utama, a work of pre-colonial historical fiction retelling the story of Sang Nila Utama from the eyes of his subjects, wives and children, which The Straits Times listed as a top read of 2025.