Han Ong

Who is Han Ong?

Playwright and novelist Han Ong is both a high-school dropout and one of the youngest recipients of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. Born in the Philippines, he moved to the United States at 16. His works, which include the novels Fixer Chao and The Disinherited, address such themes as outsiderness, cultural clash, and class conflict.

"I've written enough now to figure out I have a recurring tendency, which is that a lot of my characters are outsiders," Ong told a reporter after the debut of his second book, "It comes from being an outsider twice over—my queerness and my ethnicity. I think it's a gift, though. In life it may not be a gift, but in art it is."