Our Story
Epigram is a Singaporean independent publisher offering a full suite of publishing solutions.
Founded in 1991 as a communications design firm, Epigram found our place in publication design when our founder Edmund Wee was conferred Singapore's most prestigious design honour—Designer of the Year in the 2008 President's Design Award. Over the years, we’ve had the honour to work with countless outstanding local talents.
Having put out more than 150 commissioned projects, we started our trade imprint, Epigram Books, in 2011, to provide a platform for local creatives and champion homegrown literary talents. Currently, Epigram Books publishes fiction — novels, short stories, plays, graphic novels, chapter books, picture books — and non-fiction books from Singapore and Southeast Asia.
“If I had to give a one-word answer to why I publish, it would be ‘pleasure’.”
To date, we are best known for our award-winning titles such as the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye; the children's mystery series Sherlock Sam by A.J. Low; Lion City by Ng Yi-Sheng; and The Formidable Miss Cassidy by Meihan Boey, winner of the Singapore Book Awards 2022 for Best Literary Work.
We also initiated the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 to uncover the next great Singaporean novel. In 2020, the Prize was expanded to include works from Southeast Asia.
Check out Epigram's latest catalogue here: January – June 2026 (PDF)
In 2016, we started LocalBooks.sg, a one-stop online bookstore specialising in Singaporean titles – books written by Singaporean authors, books published in Singapore or books about Singapore – from classics to the latest novels, memoirs to recipe books, graphic novels to plays and poetry. LocalBooks.sg has since been integrated into Epigrambookshop.sg, where you can find our full catalogue of Singapore titles and more.
In 2017, we started Epigram Books UK as part of our push to bring literature from Singapore and Southeast Asia to the UK and beyond. In 2021, we made the difficult decision to close our UK operations to focus our energies on our home base in Singapore.
In 2019, we collaborated with Singaporean coffee chain Huggs Coffee to come up with the concept store Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, and in 2022, we partnered with Balestier Market Collective for our second concept store, Epigram Coffee Bookshop—both bringing together Singapore books, local-inspired drinks and food under one roof. Both bookshops have since closed, and we are currently on the lookout for our next partner to bring this vision to life again.
In 2025, Epigram Books restructured to become the Epigram Literary Foundation (ELF), a non-profit public company limited by guarantee. As a CLG, any surplus is reinvested back into the organisation and its mission—the promotion of the arts. This move expands our purpose beyond publishing Singaporean literature to supporting the broader Southeast Asian literary community, allowing us to pursue partnerships and funding that help sustain and grow the ecosystem of writers, readers, and stories we believe in.
As part of our push to bring Singapore and Southeast Asian literature to a wider regional audience, we have established publishing partnerships across Southeast Asia — with The Biblio Press (Malaysia), Elex Media Komputindo (Indonesia), River Books (Thailand), Milflores Publishing (the Philippines), and NDSP Books (Myanmar)—to publish and distribute Epigram titles in these markets. This network reflects our belief that the stories we champion deserve to be read not just at home, but across the region.