Ovidia Yu

Ovidia Yu (born 1961) is a writer from Singapore who has published award-winning plays and short stories. She has won several awards, including the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Culture Award, the National Arts Council (NAC) Young Artist Award (1996) and the Singapore Youth Award (1997). She has had more than thirty of her plays produced and is considered one of the most well-known writers in Singapore, according to HarperCollins Publishers.

Early life Yu was born in 1961 to a middle-class family in Singapore. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a teacher. Yu attended Methodist Girls' School, where her mother taught, and developed a love for reading and writing at an early age. She became particularly interested in the characters that she read about and would continue their stories in her own 'sequels' to the books. She was writing her own short stories by the time she was ten years old.

Writing Yu is known for using humour and unique characters throughout her writing to explore changing roles and identities throughout society, especially for women. She is considered one of Singapore's first feminist writers and continues to write thought-provoking plays and novels.

Yu's Aunty Lee series had been adapted for television by Singapore's Mediacorp as Aunty Lee’s Deadly Delights. Vernetta Lopez starred as the main character Aunty Lee. Yu also has epilepsy and carries notebooks around with her to counter memory lapses. These notebooks are also used for writing, as she gets many of her ideas for stories and plays by observing people in their everyday lives.