About

Mary Jean Chan is the author of the debut poetry collection Flèche, published by Faber & Faber (2019) and Faber USA (2020). Flèche won the 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 Dylan Thomas Prize. Chan co-edited 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022) with Andrew McMillan and co-wrote Siblings (Monitor Books, 2024). In 2023, Chan served as a judge for the Booker Prize. A 2023-24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow, Chan is currently Departmental Lecturer in Poetry on the Master of Studies (MSt) in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College. In 2025, Chan served as a judge for the Dylan Thomas Prize.