Ovidia Yu

Ovidia Yu (born 1961) is a writer from Singapore who has published award-winning plays and short stories. She has won several awards, including the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Culture Award (1996), the National Arts Council (NAC) Young Artist Award (1996) and the Singapore Youth Award (1997).^[1] She has had more than thirty of her plays produced and is considered one of the most well-known writers in Singapore, according to HarperCollins Publishers.^[2]

Early life

Yu was born in 1961 to a middle-class family in Singapore. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a teacher. She attended Methodist Girls' School, where her mother taught, and developed a love for reading and writing at an early age. She became particularly interested in the characters that she read about and would continue their stories in her own 'sequels' to the books. She was writing her own short stories by the time she was ten years old.^[1]

Despite her interest in liberal arts, she was pressured into becoming a doctor by her parents and friends at school. She originally attended the National University of Singapore in pursuit of a medical degree, but soon dropped out of medical school when she realized it was not the path she wanted to take. After dropping out of medical school, Yu went on to pursue literature instead. She received a master's degree and later obtained a PhD from Cambridge University. Before becoming a writer, she had earned a living by writing scripts for corporate training videos and writing manuals for machinery.^[3]

Personal life

Ovidia Yu is openly gay and uses her experiences with her sexual orientation to fuel some of her writing. These experiences were exhibited in her book Hitting (on) Women, which has been noted as one of the first novels she has written that really explored that aspect of her life. She lives in Singapore, where she continues to write and publish novels and plays.^[4] Yu also suffers from epilepsy and as a result takes many notes around with her in order to counter memory lapses. These notes are also used for writing, as she gets many of her ideas for stories and plays by observing people in their everyday lives.^[1] When she is not writing, she mentions that she practices yoga daily and volunteers at the ASPCA weekly.^[5]

Writing

Ovidia Yu is known for using humor and unique characters throughout her writing to explore changing roles and identities throughout society, especially for women. She is considered one of Singapore's first feminist writers and continues to write thought-provoking plays and novels.^[3]

Yu has mentioned that she enjoys writing about strong female characters. She believes that writing these strong characters as female will communicate her message across cultures and nationalities.^[5]

Plays

Her plays include:^[1]

Fiction

Her works of fiction include:^[1]

Non-fiction

Her works of non-fiction include:^[1]

• 1990 : Guiding in Singapore: A Chronology of Guide Events 1917-1990

Awards

She has received the following awards:^[1]

• 1984 : First prize, Asiaweek Short Story Competition, for A Dream of China.
• 1985 : Second prize, Ministry of Community Development Short Story Competition
• 1993 : Scotsman Fringe First Award, Edinburgh Fringe Festival for The Woman in a Tree on a Hill
• 1994 : Highly Commended, National Book Council Development of Singapore (NBDCS) Drama
• 1996 : Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Singapore Foundation Award for outstanding contribution to the development of arts
• 1996 : National Arts Council (NAC) Young Artist Award for Drama and Fiction
• 1997 : Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture)

References