Timothy Mo, a former bantamweight boxer, was born in Hong Kong to an English mother and a Chinese father. His family moved to England when he was ten years old. Mo was educated at Oxford and now works for the Boxing News in England, in addition to writing novels. "I wouldn't want to write fiction for seven or even five days a week," he says, "so this job is a blessed relief." His favorite authors include Doris Lessing, Thomas Mann, V.S. Naipaul, and Paul Scott, the latter two of which Mo himself has been compared to. His favorite of his own novels is An Insular Possession, published in 1987. He was once quoted as saying, "An Insular Possession is the only one of my books I would like to consume. As a writer I quite like all of them, of course, but I think it is a cracking good read. In England it was found overcerebral, some said too sophisticated, even though it was a best seller."
Information taken from the New York Times Book Review, April 19,1987 [mc]
