Aaron Maniam (b. 1979)
BIOGRAPHY
Aaron Maniam is the author of Morning at Memory’s Border, one of three books shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2007, and Second Persons, published in 2018—both by firstfruits publications. Between 2016 and 2025, he regularly edited and wrote for The Birthday Book, an annual collection of essays on Singapore (the book will be published every five years from 2025 onward).
In 2003, he won the First Prize for English poetry in the National Arts Council’s Golden Point Award. His work has been featured in the online journals Stylus and Softblow; Over There, a collection of Singapore and Australian poetry; From the Window of Our Epoch, a bilingual collection of Singapore and Malaysian poetry; as well as &words and Little Things: A Poetry Anthology, both collections of Singapore and international writing designed to promote the teaching of literature in Singapore schools. In 2009, he was one of 50 poets featured in Fifty on 50, a collection to mark Singapore’s 50th anniversary of internal self-government. He has read his poetry at the Austin International Poetry Festival and for Australia’s ABC Radio. The French government invited him as a featured poet to the 35th Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie in June 2011, and published his work in the bilingual journal La Traductiere as well as the French Journal des Poètes. In May 2014, he was one of the writers featured in the University of Hong Kong’s Becoming Poets: The Asian English Experience, which describes the creative process of a range of writers in various Asian countries. In August 2015, three of his poems were featured in From Walden to Woodlands, an anthology of interfaith nature poetry in Singapore.
Maniam has been active in promoting the arts and culture in Singapore. He has mentored young writers under the Creative Arts Programme, organised by the Ministry of Education and National University of Singapore (since 2004); as well as the National Arts Council’s Mentor Access Project (since 2008). He was the youngest member on the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA)’s high-level Arts and Culture Strategic Review Steering Committee (2010-2012), and a Council Member of the English Language Institute of Singapore (2011–2013) committees providing strategic leadership on the long-term direction for Singapore’s arts scene, and English language pedagogy, respectively. In 2025, he guest edited a special issue of Cultural Connections, the journal of the Singapore Culture Academy, to commemorate Singapore’s 60th year of independence.
Formerly a civil servant, Maniam currently researches and teaches on technology and policy issues at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, from which he obtained his PhD in 2022. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from Oxford and Yale on public service scholarships. His early education was at Raffles Institution’s Gifted Education Programme (1992-95) and Raffles Junior College’s Humanities Programme (1996-97). He was Singapore’s top student in the GCE Ordinary Level Examination in 1995, and won the Angus Ross Prize for the best GCE Advanced Level English Literature script in the Commonwealth in 1997.
Author Photo and Biography © Aaron Maniam. All rights reserved.
