• Photo credit: Ray Burmiston

    About

    Mary Jean Chan is the author of the poetry collection Flèche, published by Faber & Faber (2019) and Faber USA (2020). Flèche won the 2019 Costa Book Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. An Italian translation of Flèche by Giorgia Sensi was published by Interno Poesia in 2023.

     

    Chan's second book, Bright Fear (Faber, 2023), is a Guardian Best Poetry Book of 2023 and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Writers' Prize and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Chan co-edited 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022) with Andrew McMillan and co-wrote Siblings (Monitor Books, 2024) with Jay Bernard, Will Harris and Nisha Ramayya. In 2023, Chan served as a judge for the Booker Prize. A recent Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow, Chan is currently Departmental Lecturer in Poetry on the Master of Studies in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford.

  • Poetry

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    Shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize

    for Best Collection, the 2024 Writers' Prize

    & the 2024 International Dylan Thomas Prize

     

    A Poetry Book Society Recommendation

     

    Reviews

     

    Thoughtful clear-sightedness abounds in Bright Fear...it is exhilarating to read a poet so sure of their intent. –​ The New Statesman

     

    Reading Bright Fear is like testing the blade of a knife and finding it exquisitely sharp. –​ The Guardian

     

    Written with a quiet intimacy, Mary Jean Chan's second collection hums by your ear with gentle, inviting and formally inventive poetry. – The Dylan Thomas Prize

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    Winner of the 2019 Costa Poetry Award

     

    A Poetry Book Society Recommendation

     

    Reviews

     

    One of those rare poets who leave you looking up with a sense that you can engage even the smallest part of the world around you with a much greater intensity. –​ PN Review

     

    Extraordinary, brilliant and...beautifully governed by formal rigour and literary excellence. –​ The Poetry Review

     

    As governing metaphor and organising principle...the sport [of fencing] provides enlivening strategies for the poetic realisation of loss and rebellion. –​ The Guardian

  • Events

    2024

     

    20 Jan: Reading with Victoria Adukwei Bulley & Momtaza Mehri, Blackwell's, Oxford

    31 Jan: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

    8 Feb: Reading with Isobel Dixon, Shehzar Doja & others, The Glasgow Network of Poets

    24 Feb: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, Magdalene Poetry Society, Cambridge

    29 Feb: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan with Enora Lessinger, Daunt, Oxford

    1 Mar: Judge, The Avril Gilchrist Bruten Award for Creative Writing, St Hugh's, Oxford

    3 Mar: Speaker, On Wilderness and the Poetic Imagination, Wadham Chapel, Oxford

    7-9 Mar: Speaker, Poetry's Englishes Symposium, Chinese University of Hong Kong

    18 Mar: Interviewer, In Conversation with Diarmuid Hester, The Cambridge Festival

    23 Mar: Reading, Poets and Players, The Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester

    24 Mar: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, MSt in Creative Writing, Oxford

    28 Mar: Reading, Out-Spoken Poetry Live March Edition, Southbank Centre, London

    4 Apr: Speaker, Mary Jean Chan & Phoebe Wang, The University of Orleans, France

    11 Apr: Launch of Siblings with Jay Bernard, Will Harris & Nisha Ramayya, LRB, London

    9 May: Reading, Mary Jean Chan & Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, Coronet Theatre, London

    15 May: Reading, The 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist, Waterstones Piccadilly, London

    23 May: Reading with Sean Hewitt & Harry Josephine Giles, International Lit Fest, Dublin

    31 May: Faculty Reading with Rachael Allen & Sanah Ahsan, Faculty of English, Cambridge

    4 June: Reading, Mary Jean Chan, Jazz Money & Ellen van Neerven, Trinity Hall, Cambridge

    18 June: 100 Queer Poems with Andrew McMillan & Richard Scott, Foyles Bookshop, London

    15 Aug: Siblings with Jay Bernard, Will Harris & Nisha Ramayya, Edinburgh Book Festival

    5 Oct: Reading with Roger Robinson, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan & Jasmine Gardosi, Derby

    13 Nov: Interview, On the 2024 Booker Prize winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey, France 24

    18 Nov: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, Jesus College Herbert English Society, Oxford

    4 Dec: Reading with Caleb Leow, Rency Raquid & Patrick McGuinness, St Edmund Hall, Oxford

     

     

     

    2023

     

    19 Feb: Moderator, 100 Queer Poems panel, The Verve Poetry Festival, Birmingham

    24 Feb: Reading & Discussion, English & Comparative Literary Studies, Warwick

    1 Mar: Reading, After Sylvia: Poets on Plath, The National Poetry Library, London

    9 Mar: Reading, Mary Jean Chan, Keith Jarrett & Faryal Velmi, Reading University

    11 Mar: Reading, Poets of Chinese Heritage, 2023 AWP conference, Seattle, US

    14 Apr: Reading, Mary Jean Chan with Giorgia Sensi, Ritratti di Poesia, Rome, Italy

    12 May: Reading with Kim Moore & Clare Shaw, The 2023 Newcastle Poetry Festival

    22 May: Reading with Michael Symmons Roberts, Harris Manchester College, Oxford

    11 July: Reading, Contemporary Queer Literature in Britain, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

    28 July: Launch, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan with Andrew McMillan, LRB Bookshop

    31 Aug: Reading by Mary Jean Chan, Asia Creative Writing Programme, Singapore

    18 Sept: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, Topping & Co. Bookshop, Bath

    21 Sept: Judge, Booker Prize shortlist event, The National Portrait Gallery, London

    15 Oct: Reading with Jen Campbell & Kit Fan, The Durham Book Festival, Durham

    16 Oct: Reading, The Forward Prizes for Poetry awards ceremony, Leeds Playhouse

    21 Oct: Reading with Fiona Benson & Stephen Sexton, Seamus Heaney HomePlace

    24 Oct: Reading with Mona Arshi & Bhanu Kapil, Pembroke College, Cambridge

    28 Oct: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, The Wantage Literary Festival

    30 Oct: Reading with Patrick James Errington & Fahad Al-Amoudi, Oxford Brookes

    7 Nov: Reading, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, Topping & Co. Bookshop, Edinburgh

    20 Nov: Reading with Rachael Allen, Ishion Hutchinson & Daljit Nagra, The Bindery

    26 Nov: Judge, The 2023 Booker Prize winner ceremony, Old Billingsgate, London

    5 Dec: Talk, The Booker Prize: Mary Jean Chan with Enora Lessinger, Oxford Brookes

  • Media

    Readings and Interviews

    January 2020

    Faber & Faber

    February 2023

    The National Centre for Writing

    November 2023

    Poetology

  • Contact

    Agent: Emma Paterson

    emma@aitkenalexander.co.uk

     

    Publicity: Tara McEvoy

    tara.mcevoy@faber.co.uk