The David T. K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship is a unique and generous annual award of £26,000 to enable a fiction writer who wants to write in English about East and Southeast Asia to spend a year at the University of East Anglia.
The Fellowship is named for its sponsor Mr David T.K. Wong, a retired Hong Kong businessman who has also been a teacher, journalist and senior civil servant, and is a writer of fiction. The Fellowship was launched in 1997 and the first Fellow appointed from 1st October 1998.
David T.K. Wong's first novel The Evergreen Teahouse was published in 2003, his collection of short fiction Chinese Stories in Times of Change in 2009. His most recent novel is The Embrace of Harlots. To read excerpts from David Wong's work and for more information, please visit his website.
Fellowship Award 2022/23
We are delighted to announce that the 2022/23 David T. K. Wong Fellowship has been awarded to Mishi Saran.
Mishi Saran’s first novel The Other Side of Light (HarperCollins India, 2012) was shortlisted for the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. In 2018 Penguin reissued her Silk Road travelogue Chasing the Monk’s Shadow: A Journey in the Footsteps of Xuanzang (2005), shortlisted for India’s Hutch-Crossword Literary Award for Non-Fiction and long listed for Germany’s Lettres Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage. Saran has curated, co-edited or contributed to several anthologies, including Hong Kong 20/20 (Blacksmith Books 2017) and Stray Birds on the Huangpu: A History of Indians in Shanghai (Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing Company 2018). She is an MFA candidate at the Vermont College of Fine Arts (2022) and completing a new novel set in Shanghai in the 1930s.
Former David T.K. Wong Fellows
You can read more about the former Fellows on UEA Writers.
- John Bengan (2021/22)
- Che Yeun (2020/21)
- Joe Milan Jr. (2019/20)
- Melissa Fu (2018/19)
- Nathaniel Go (2017/18)
- Meng Jin (2016/17)
- Violet Kupersmith (2015/16)
- Jack Wang (2014/15)
- Sharlene Teo (2013/14)
- Ramesh Balakrishna Pillay (2012/13)
- Presca Ahn (2011/12)
- Chau (Cab) Tran (2010/11)
- Hanh Hoang (2009/10)
- Nam Le (2008/9)
- Balli Jaswal (2007/8)
- Mulaika Hijjas (2006/7)
- Linh Dinh (2005/6)
- Rattawut Lapcharoensap (2004/5)
- Lakambini (Bing) Sitoy (2003/4)
- Wendy Law-Yone (2002/3)
- Liisa Laing (2001/2)
- Simone Lazaroo (2000/1)
- José Dalisay (1999/2000)
- Po Wah Lam (1998/99)
Applying for the Fellowship
Applications for the 2023/24 Fellowship are open between January 2nd and 27th February 2023.
Payment of the £10 admin fee can be made here.
Please contact the Fellowship Administrator if you have any queries.