The business school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
has not perhaps inspired many poets. But when Mary Jean Chan describes her journey to becoming one of the world's most promising and admired young writers, she names her decision to leave the business school as a pivotal moment.
"It was desperation really," she says. "I was in a very bad place bordering on depression. My parents saw that and knew something had to change."
Talking to 29-year-old Chan a decade later, in her adopted home city of London, it's hard to believe she enrolled in the first place. Sensitive and thoughtful, she seems the antithesis of a hardbitten banker or financier. "I always knew I didn't have a talent for numbers. Maths was my worst subject. My parents were taken aback [by her decision to leave]. My teachers wanted to talk about it."
