About Timothy Mo
Born 1950. Timothy Mo is a British writer, journalist and novelist.
Timothy Peter Mo (born 30December 1950 ) is a British Asian novelist. Born to a British mother and a Hong Kong father, Mo lived in Hong Kong until the age of 10, when he moved to Britain. Educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College, Oxford, Mo worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist.
His works have won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), and three of his novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
In the early 1990s Mo became increasingly mistrustful of his publishers and increasingly outspoken about the publishing industry in general. Since 1994 when he rejected a £125,000 advance from Random House for his next novel, he has self-published his books under the label "Paddleless Press". His first novel to be self-published was Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard.
Background Mo has been described as a British Asian author.
Novels
The Monkey King (1978) Sour Sweet (1982), filmed as Soursweet in 1988 An Insular Possession (1986) The Redundancy of Courage (1991) Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard (1995) Renegade or Halo2 (2000) Pure (2012)
Awards 1979: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for The Monkey King 1982: Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) for Sour Sweet 1999: James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) for Renegade or Halo2
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Important facts
People in Timothy Mo's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Timothy Mo's
Frequently asked questions
Who is Timothy Mo?
novelist
When was Timothy Mo born?
Timothy Mo was born on 30 December 1950 in Hong Kong.
What is Timothy Mo's occupation?
Timothy Mo is a writer, journalist and novelist.
What nationality is Timothy Mo?
Timothy Mo is British.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Timothy Mo. https://biography.guide/timothy-mo/
MLA: "Timothy Mo." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/timothy-mo/.
Chicago: "Timothy Mo." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/timothy-mo/.
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