Koh Jee Leong (b. 1970)
BIOGRAPHY
A Singaporean writer, editor, and publisher living in New York City, Koh Jee Leong is the author of seven books of poems, Payday Loans (Poets Wear Prada Press, 2008; Math Paper Press, 2014), Equal to the Earth (Bench Press, 2009), Seven Studies for a Self Portrait (Bench Press, 2011), Steep Tea (Carcanet Press, 2015), Connor & Seal (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020), Inspector Inspector (Carcanet Press, 2022), and Sample and Loop: A Simple History of Singaporeans in America (Bench Press, 2023); two books of essays, The Pillow Book (Math Paper Press, 2012) and Bite Harder: Open Letters and Close Readings (Ethos Books, 2018); and a hybrid work of fiction, Snow at 5 PM: Translations of an insignificant Japanese poet (Bench Press, 2020).
Steep Tea was named a Best Book of the Year by the UK’s Financial Times and a Finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards in the US. The Pillow Book, Connor & Seal, and Inspector Inspector were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in English Poetry. Sample and Loop was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in English Creative Non-fiction. Snow at 5 PM won the Singapore Literature Prize in English Fiction.
Koh's work has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Vietnamese, Russian, and Latvian. The Pillow Book was published in an illustrated, bilingual (Japanese-English) edition by Awai Books in 2014.
Koh is the founder of the NYC-based transnational literary non-profit Singapore Unbound, which organises the biennial Singapore Literature Festival in New York City and the monthly Second Saturdays Reading Series, and publishes works of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction through the press Gaudy Boy and the journal SUSPECT.
Author Photo © The Straits Times. Author Biography © Koh Jee Leong. All rights reserved.
