Theophilus Kwek (郭慕義) is a writer, translator, editor and independent researcher based in Singapore. He has published four full-length collections of poetry, They Speak Only Our Mother Tongue (2011), Circle Line (2013), Giving Ground (2016) and Moving House (2020). Both Circle Line and Giving Ground were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize, in 2014 and 2018 respectively. In addition, his pamphlet, The First Five Storms (2017), was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award and won the inaugural New Poets’ Prize. In 2023, he was the youngest writer (and first Singaporean) to be awarded the Cikada Prize by the Swedish Institute, for poetry that “defends the inviolability of life”. He is part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2024.

Theophilus has also been nominated for various other awards, winning the Martin Starkie Prize in 2014, the Jane Martin Prize in 2015, the British Council’s ‘Writing the City’ Competition in 2016, the Berfrois Poetry Prize in 2017 and The Interpreters’ House Prize in 2018. His translation of Wong Yoon Wah’s poem ‘Moving House’ was placed Second in the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation in 2016, and his essay ‘The Magicians’ was a Runner-Up in the Columbia Journal’s Nonfiction Contest in 2020. His poems, essays, reviews and translations have appeared in The Guardian, The Straits Times, The Irish Examiner, Times Literary Supplement, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Mekong Review, Hong Kong Review of Books, and other publications. He has also had the privilege of presenting his work at the Poetry International Festival (Rotterdam), Ledbury Poetry Festival, Singapore Writers Festival, and elsewhere.

Theophilus began writing as a student at Raffles Institution under the mentorship of Alvin Pang, Aaron Maniam and others. He went on to serve as President of the Oxford University Poetry Society, Editor at Oxford Poetry, Publications Director of the Oxford Writers’ House, Poetry Reader at The London Magazine, and Editor-at-Large for Singapore at Asymptote. While at university, he co-edited Flight, an anthology of poetry in response to the European refugee crisis, published by the Oxford Students’ Oxfam Group, and UnFree Verse, an anthology of formal poetry in Singapore. His long poem, Terezin, was performed at the Oxford New Writing Festival and—adapted as a chamber opera by Daniel Bonaventure Lim—at the "Performing the Jewish Archives" project at the University of Leeds. He also wrote the libretto for This World Lousy, a new musical by Peter Shepherd which premiered in Oxford in 2016, and a new prologue for The Fairy Queen, for Theatron Novum. Later that year, he co-founded The Kindling with Tash Keary, and subsequently also served as Poetry Editor of the Asian Books Blog. Today, he is a member of the editorial team behind PR&TA, and a member of the Rathbones Folio Academy.

Other collaborations include Ways of Walking, a pamphlet of poetry and paintings by Alvin Ong produced to raise funds for Refugee Resource, an Oxford-based charity; and Testimony, a genre-crossing performance with composer Yvonne Teo, responding to the Rohingya refugee crisis, which premiered at The Arts House in 2018. More recently, he has also collaborated with composer Alex Ho on works commissioned by the National Opera Studio, Royal Opera House, and Oxford Lieder, as well as with composer Jonathan Shin on new work for New Opera Singapore.

Having previously served as a mentor on The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Programme, he is now a mentor on the Creative Arts Programme, run by the Ministry of Education in Singapore. He has also served as an instructor with Book A Writer (Sing Lit Station), Book Village (Ethos Books), and SBC Campus (Singapore Book Council), and is a proud supporter of initiatives such as the Global Migrant Festival, Migrant Cultural Show and the Migrant Writers of Singapore.

The writing that appears on this site reflects only the author’s individual opinions and not those of any organisations he is affiliated with.