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Mok, Tze Ming
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Tze Ming Mok

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Mok, Tze Ming
In brief
Tze Ming Mok is a fiction writer, poet, essayist and political commentator. Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction pieces have been published in a wide range of journals, anthologies and news media locally and internationally. She guest-edited the Autumn 2006 issue of Landfall, and was an Arts Foundation New Generation Award recipient in 2006. Her essay ‘Race You There’ won the 2004 Landfall Essay Competition, which she shared with Martin Edmond.
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Bio

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mok, Tze Ming (1978 - ) is a fiction writer, poet, essayist and political commentator.

Tze Ming Mok has lived in Chengdu, Beijing, Cairo, Geneva and London, but was born and raised in Mt Roskill, Auckland.

Her fiction, poetry and arts reviews have been regularly published in literary journals, anthologies and magazines, as well as overseas.

In 2004 Mok’s poem ‘An Arabic Poetry Lesson in Jakarta’ was selected as one of the Best New Zealand Poems 2004. That same year, Mok’s essay ‘Race You There’ won the Landfall Essay Competition Prize, which she shared with Martin Edmond. ‘Race You There’ is an examination of Asian identity in New Zealand, and why Asian communities need to engage with Treaty of Waitangi. ‘Race You There’ also appears in Great New Zealand Argument: Ideas about ourselves, edited by Russell Brown (Activity Press, 2005). In 2006, Mok guest-edited the Autumn issue of Landfall, giving it the theme 'Borderline'. That year, the Arts Foundation named her as one of its New Generation Laureates.

Mok is often described as a new critical voice from the New Zealand Chinese communities. She was a prominent Asian community advocate in New Zealand from 2005-2007, writing the blog 'Yellow Peril' on the popular community weblog Public Address, publishing a weekly column in the Sunday Star-Times in 2006. and acting as a frequent New Zealand media commentator on race and immigration issues. In 2004 she led an anti-racist march to Parliament in response to hate crimes in Wellington. In 2007 she and other Asian community leaders organised a successful New Zealand Press Council challenge of a racially discriminatory magazine article that had been published in North & South magazine.

Mok's short story ‘Daily Special’ appears in The Best New Zealand Fiction Volume 2, edited by Fiona Kidman (Random House NZ, 2005).

Mok was a 2006 Arts Foundation New Generation Award recipient. The award celebrates early achievement by five artists biennially, who are judged to have developed an individual identity that demonstrates richness, range and depth, and stand for the strength and quality of their particular art form in New Zealand, at their level.

She has in the past worked as a refugee status officer, a refugee legal advisor, an EEO advisor with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, and for the United Nations.

A story 'No Shadow Kick' by Tze Ming Mok appears in the short story collection Lost in Translation (Random House, 2010). The collection asked writers to explore the trickiness of communication, between people and cultures.

Tze Ming Mok lives in London.

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