Christian Yeo Xuan

Christian Yeo Xuan (he/they) is a writer and actor based in Singapore by way of Paris and Beirut. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Oxford Poetry, Indiana Review, Anthropocene, The Hajar Book of Rage, and New Singapore Poetries, among others. He has placed or been a finalist for the National Poetry Competition, the Poetry London Pamphlet Prize, the Bridport Prize, and NYU’s Washington Square Review New Voices Award, among others. A Brooklyn Poets Fellow, he has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, Tin House, Berlin Writers’ Workshop, and the National Arts Council. He is a 2025 Sunhouse Poetry Mentor and a fiction editorial intern with NYC-based independent press Gaudy Boy.

Christian is currently querying agents for a novel and a poetry manuscript. His novel was a finalist for the 2024 Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship for Emerging Writers, and his chapbook received an Honourable Mention from Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh Chapbook Series. He is also working on two plays.

As an actor, Christian was main cast in Cambridge theatre’s second and third ever Southeast Asian scripts, subsequently trained at Wild Rice’s Young & Wild programme, and has acted for film in the festival circuit. He has received film criticism commissions from the Singapore International Film Festival and the Asian Film Archive. 

In his other life, he is a civil legal aid litigator largely representing working-class victims of domestic violence. He previously worked on AI safety at the UN. He holds a BA in Law from Cambridge, where he graduated with Double First Class Honours and topped his year in Labour Law, winning the Orlando Bridgman Prize, Bundy Scholarship, Chooiseng Lim Scholarship, Archie Leslie Travel Scholarship, and the Arthur Sale Poetry Prize.