Jannis Jizhou Chen

Jannis Jizhou Chen was born in Chengdu and left China in his teens. Since then he has sojourned in Singapore, Germany and the United States. His multimodal migratory experience has largely informed his writing. He is a multiple-time winner of the Singapore Tertiary Chinese Literature Awards and the Lianhe Zaobao Gold Award. Jannis’s first book, The Stories of Eng Watt Street (永發街事), is a collection of twelve short stories set in Singapore. The book explores themes such as migration, sexuality, religion and intergenerational issues among family members of migrant background. His short stories are published in the greater Sinophone world including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. As a scholar, Jannis graduated from National University of Singapore in 2015 with a B.A. with Honors in Chinese Studies and received his Master’s degree from Harvard University (Regional Studies East Asia) in 2017. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His research interests include Sinophone literature, modern Chinese literature, Sino-German literary and cultural exchange. In recent years, his research becomes increasingly engaged with the debates revolving environmental studies and posthumanism.