Yee Heng Yeh

Writer | Translator | Poet | Playwright

Profile photo of Yee Heng Yeh: dressed in dark grey t-shirt, short black hair, and black-rimmed glasses, warm background

Born and based in Malaysia, Yee Heng Yeh has been a resident artist at Rimbun Dahan (2023), a Writing Fellow at A Public Space (2023), and a Chevening Scholar studying MA Creative Writing Poetry at the University of East Anglia (2024 – 2025). He has received bursaries for Bristol Translates Summer School and Granta's Nature Writing Workshop, and is currently the Poetry Editor of NutMag, a Penang-based zine.He has also served as a judge for Hin Hua High School's Creative Writing Award (Poem) and a speaker for the SOAS South East Asian Studies Seminar Series 2025. He sometimes runs workshops and writes reviews.

Poetry

“Poem Without Birds”, Rattle (2025)“Song”, translated for Hibiscus And Plum Blossoms: Contemporary Malaysian And Taiwanese Poems (2025)“Sultan Ismail’s Photographs from May 15, 1969”, “A Day in Childhood”, reprinted in Malaysian Places and Spaces: Poems (2024)“Soundscape for Grandmother” (shortlisted for the Bridport Prize 2024), Echoes - 20 years of Write Out Loud (2025)“Portraits of My Aunt on Her Sickbed”, A Public Space (2024)“The Undead Crow”, adda (2024)“Legal Entity”, “An Interrogation of the Ingredients in a Sambal Bilis Bun”, Tanah-Air, published as part of the Klang River Festival (2024)“Portrait of the Artist as a God: Thread”, Book XI (2024)“Sama-Sama”, “The Coloniser’s Gift”, “Cincai”, Portside Review: Issue Eleven (2023)“Homecoming”, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine Issue 72: Crossings (2023)“The Machine”, Small Wonders Magazine: Issue 2 (2023)“Death Threats” (nominated for the Pushcart Prize), “Note to the Police Officer”, “Letter from Altantuyaa’s Father”, SUSPECT (2023)“Won’t someone think of the fish?”, Consequence Forum 15.1 (2023)“Marriage” (nominated for the Pushcart Prize), Apparition Lit Issue 22: Symmetry (2023)“Time Travel”, “Sultan Ismail’s Photographs from May 15, 1969”, “A Political Story”, “Cincai”, “Letter from Altantuyaa’s Father”, A Wasteland Of Malaysian Poetry In English, an audio exhibition (2022)“Lost and Found”, “Song”, Strange Horizons (2022)“Sultan Ismail’s Photographs from May 15, 1969”, “Time Travel”, listed in the Malaysian Poetry Writing Competition 2021, published in Year of the Rat and Other Poems (2022)“A Political Story”, “A Day in Childhood”, “Thoughts on the Common House Spider”, Malaysian Millennial Voices (2021)“Knowing Time”, adda (2020)

Prose

Fiction“I Am a Dragon Joss Stick: An Essay”, winner of the Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers 2025, forthcoming in CRAFT (2026)“Cockroach”, Imprints: Chevening Writers Series 2021; later reprinted in Guernica (2022)

Non-Fiction“Unboxed 2025 #1 A Brief Abridged Summary of What It Takes to Run One (1) Poetry Translation Centre”, UEA Archives Blog (2025)Ceritalah: Penang Hokkien NFT Archives, six limited-edition cultural heritage NFTs drawing upon The Tale of the Lychee and Mirror (2024)“A Love Letter to Hawker Spaces”, This Is Southeast Asia (2023)

PLays

Rhino! Rhino!
Finalist for the Carlo Annoni International Playwriting Prize 2025
Supported by Instant Café Theatre Company’s FIRSTWoRKS and the Cipta Seni Incubator (2024)“Cake”
Short+Sweet KL (2023)“163288”
FRESH 14.0; produced by ZXC Theatre Troupe (2023)“Orange”
FRESH 12.0; produced by ZXC Theatre Troupe (2021)“talk.”
Short+Sweet Penang; winner of Best Script, Best Overall Production, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (2019)“Parent-Teacher Conference”
Short+Sweet KL and Penang (2018)

Translations

“Xia Mei’s Clock” by King Ban Hui, Objects of Desire: 10 Malaysian Chinese Short Stories in Translation (2025)Material Woman in the Beauty World by Leow Puay Tin, translated into Malay for “Bengkel Kenduri Suara” (2023)“When Wandering is a Way of Life” by Danny Chew, This is Southeast Asia (2023)“Why Am I Here” by Chiew Ruoh Peng, World Poetry Movement Malaysia (2023)Subtitles for Malam Takdir by Johan Othman (2023)“Death is the Tortoise”, “No Poetry” by Chiew Ruoh Peng, Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism, and Translation (2022)“Photographer” by Chiew Ruoh Peng, Nashville Review (2022)Subtitles for “Bathroom” and “I Float Alone on a Pitch-Black Sea”, FRESH 13.0 (2023)

Reviews

“Imaginings of Nationhood: on ‘Negaraku’, a Collector’s Show by Bingley Sim and Ima Nurbinsha”, Penang Monthly (2024)“Raging Against the Machine: Reflections on Pendatang, Abang Adik and Maryam Pagi Ke Malam”, Penang Monthly (2024)“A review of Kaleidotrope Summer 2023”, “A review of Eita! #3”, “A review of khōréō 3.1”, Interzone Digital (2023)“Buddha in Africa: An Imbalance of Power?”, Handful of Leaves (2023)“Exposing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary”, Penang Monthly (2023)“Review of What Has Happened to Harry Pillai?”, Men Matters Online Journal (2023)“Book Review: The Best of Malaysian Short Fiction in English 2010-2020, Exploring the Faculty of Malaysia’s Fictioneers”, Penang Monthly (2023)