Han Ong is both a high-school dropout and one of the youngest recipients of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. In 1993 Ong was a winner of the Kesselring Prize for best new American plays for Swoony Planet. In 1994, Ong moved to New York where he received critical acclaim for his plays. He was praised by Robert Brustein, the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater and one of the most esteemed figures of the American stage. In 1997, at age 29, Ong was one of 23 winners of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowships; his grant was $200,000. Ong's works have been performed at venues such as the Highways Performance Space and Gallery and the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California; Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York; Portland Stage Company in Maine; Boston's American Repertory Theater; and at the Almeida Theater in London.
Since his MacDowell residency, Ong has published two novels: Fixer Chao (2001) and The Disinherited (2004), both with Farrar Straus and Giroux. His stories can be found in The New Yorker, Conjunctions, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among other publications. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.
