April 2026: Hongwei Bao
This month we are delighted to feature Hongwei Bao. We featured one of Hongwei's poetry anthologies in our bookclub in 2024, but this month we are focusing on his prose and drama, in part to coincide with the tour of the play Hot Pot which is based on one of his short stories, and which will be performed in Leeds in June this year.
Bio: Hongwei Bao (he/him) is a queer British Chinese writer, academic and theatre maker. Having grown up in Inner Mongolia, he uses poetry, short story and creative nonfiction to explore queer desire, Asian identity, diasporic positionality and transcultural intimacy. His creative work has appeared in Carnations, Violets & Lavender, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Covert Literary Magazine, Eunoia Review, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Medusa’s Kitchen, Messy Misfits Club, Poetry Catalog, Shanghai Literary Review, The Anthropocene, The Hooghly Review, The Other Side of Hope, The Ponder Review, The Rialto, The Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and Write On. He is part of the Fifth Word Playwrights, GOBS Collective, Paper Crane Poets, Nottingham Playhouse Writers' Room and Birmingham Hippodrome Creatives. He is also a Middle Way Mentee (Dalia Publishing and Leicester Curve) and a New Earth Theatremaker. He serves as a Trustee for New Earth Theatre, an advisory board member for New Nottingham Journal and Queer Up Duck! Festival. He teaches media studies at the University of Nottingham.
Hongwei is the author of Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (poetry, Big White Shed, 2024), The Passion of the Rabbit God (poetry, Valley Press, 2024), Queering the Asian Diaspora (nonfiction, Sage, 2025) and Self-Portrait as a Banana (poetry, Poetic Edge, 2025). His short story ‘A Postcard from Berlin’ won second place in the Plaza Prize for Microfiction in 2023. Hongwei has performed his poetry at Bad Bettys Live, Broadway Cinema Nottingham, ESEA Authors LitFest, Inspire Poetry Festival, Nottingham Central Library, Nottingham Poetry Festival, Nottingham Playhouse and Five Leaves Bookshop.
Prof Bao's most recently published prose works include "Reunion" and "Zizzi", both of which have been adapted for the stage. The original stories can both be read in full here. "Reunion" was first published in the Dahlia Press anthology In the Middle: New Writings from the Midlands (2025). "Zizzi" was first published in Variant Literature Issue 20, also in 2025, and has been nominated for Monarch Queer Literary Awards 2026. It was first performed as a short play at the New Earth Theatre Maker Showcase at Birmingham Hippodrome on 22 February 2026 You can watch the recorded video of this performance on Youtube. We are very grateful for the permission to feature both of these.
The dramatic adaption of "Reunion", produced by Auka Productions as a play titled HOT POT 火锅 is Hongwei's debut stage play. It is touring Playhouse East (London) 16-21 June, Lakeside Arts, Nottingham, on 25 June 2026, Stage@Leeds on 26 June 2026 and then Derby Theatre in Derby on 4 July 2026.
Our Centre is supporting the Leeds performance.
Synopsis of the play Hot Pot: Four Chinese friends meet at a hot pot restaurant in central Beijing for a class reunion after the Covid pandemic: the quiet and idealist artist Tao, an artist visiting from London; the rebellious and outspoken queer fiction writer Lin; the pragmatic and sophisticated Mei, Artistic Director of a successful fashion magazine; and the ambitious and politically savvy Ming, Head of News of a Chinese state newspaper. Over dinner, the four friends reminisce about the good old days and boast of their current achievements. As life trajectories diverge, the idealism of their youth gives way to pragmatism and cynicism. Will their friendships stand the test of time? Will past lovers rekindle their romance? Can gay sexuality be discussed, and expressed, in a queer-unfriendly and politically sensitive environment? A story about friendship, love and the pursuit of an authentic life under challenging circumstances between two very different cultures.