Mary Jean Chan


Mary Jean Chan is a Hong Kong Chinese-British poet, lecturer, editor and critic. Her first poetry collection, Flèche, won the 2019 Costa Book Award in the Poetry category. She was also a 2019 recipient of an Eric Gregory Award for a collection by poets under the age of 30. Chan is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and was guest co-editor of The Poetry Review for Spring 2020. She currently lives in London.

Biography

Mary Jean Chan was born in 1990 and was raised in Hong Kong.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College in 2012 with a BA in Political Science. She furthered her studies at the University of Oxford where she obtained an MPhil in 2015 in International Development. She 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. It was chosen as a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation. The book won the Costa Book Award for Poetry in 2019.
In 2019, Mary Jean Chan was named as one of Jackie Kay's 10 Best BAME Writers in Britain, describing her poetry as "psychologically astute and culturally complex."
Chan is a Ledbury Poetry Critic. She is currently Lecturer in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University.

Awards