Mary Jean Chan

Mary Jean Chan is a Hong Kong-Chinese poet, lecturer, editor and critic whose debut poetry collection, Flèche, won the 2019 Costa Book Award in the poetry category. Chan's second book, Bright Fear, was published by Faber in 2023. In 2023, Chan served as a judge for the Booker Prize.

Biography

Mary Jean Chan was born in 1990 and was raised in Hong Kong. Chan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College in 2012 with a BA in Political Science. Chan obtained an MPhil from Oxford in International Development and also completed an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

In 2018, Chan's pamphlet, A Hurry of English, was published by ignitionpress and was chosen as a Poetry Book Society Summer Pamphlet Choice. Chan's debut poetry collection Flèche was published by Faber & Faber (2019). It was chosen as a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation. The book won the Costa Book Award for Poetry in 2019.

In 2019, Chan was named as one of Jackie Kay's 10 Best BAME Writers in Britain, with Kay describing Chan's poetry as "psychologically astute and culturally complex."

Chan's second collection of poems, Bright Fear, was shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection and the 2024 Writers' Prize.

Chan served as Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University from 2018 till 2023. Chan is currently a tutor on the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and is the 2023–24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Awards

• 2024: Jhalak Prize (Longlisted for Bright Fear)
• 2024: Dylan Thomas Prize (Shortlisted for Bright Fear)
• 2024: The Folio Prize (Shortlisted for Bright Fear)
• 2023: Forward Prize for Best Collection (Shortlisted for Bright Fear)
• 2022: Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards (Shortlisted for 100 Queer Poems)
• 2021: Lambda Literary Awards (Finalist for Flèche)
• 2020: Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry First Collection Prize (Shortlisted for Flèche)
• 2020: Jhalak Prize (Shortlisted for Flèche)
• 2020: John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize (Shortlisted for Flèche)
• 2020: Dylan Thomas Prize (Shortlisted for Flèche)
• 2019: Costa Book Award for Poetry, Flèche
• 2019: Eric Gregory Award, A Hurry Of English
• 2019: Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Shortlisted)
• 2018: Poetry Society Geoffrey Dearmer Award
• 2017: Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Shortlisted)
• 2017: Poetry Society Anne Born Prize
• 2017: National Poetry Competition (Second Place)

Bibliography

• Siblings (Monitor Books, 2024), with Jay Bernard, Will Harris & Nisha Ramayya
• Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023)
• 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022), co-editor with Andrew McMillan
• Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019)
• A Hurry of English (ignitionpress, 2018)

External links

• Official website

References