Mind the Gap

Winner of the 2026 Epigram Books Fiction Prize, Ratna Damayanti Taha's debut follows Nora, a precocious Malay girl who loves data, charts and logic, as she grows up alongside Singapore's expanding MRT network from the 1990s to the present. As life's messiness collides with her faith in merit and order, she is forced to reckon with the hidden costs of belonging and getting ahead.