He received an M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1981 and a B.A. from Vassar College in 1977. He teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Pangs of Love received the 1991 First Fiction Award from the Los Angeles Times and the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. It was also named a Notable Book by the New York Times and a Voice Literary Supplement Favorite. The Barbarians are Coming won the Shirley Collier Prize.

In 2001, he was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He has also had a fellowship with the National Foundation for the Arts.

• A Contemporary Asian American Anthology with Marilyn Chin.

Anthologies

from March 2008:

1. Caucasian Partners and Generational Conflicts-David Wong Louie's Pangs of Love By: Wen-ching Ho, EurAmerica: A Journal of European and American Studies, 2004 June; 34 (2): 231-64.
2. 'The Most Outrageous Masquerade': Queering Asian-American Masculinity By: Crystal Parikh, MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 2002 Winter; 48 (4): 858-98. (journal article)
3. Toward a More Worldly World Series: Reading Game Three of the 1998 American League Championship and David Wong Louie's 'Warming Trends' By: Jeff Partridge, American Studies International, 2000 June; 38 (2): 115-25. (journal article)
4. Saddle ; Zyzzyva, 1999 Winter; 15 (3): 116-21.
5. Chinese/Asian American Men in the 1990s: Displacement, Impersonation, Paternity, and Extinction in David Wong Louie's Pangs of Love By: Sau-ling Cynthia Wong. IN: Okihiro, Alquizola, Rony and Wong, Privileging Positions: The Sites of Asian American Studies. Pullman: Washington State UP; 1995. pp. 181—91
6. Cynthia Kadohata and David Wong Louie: The Pangs of a Floating World By: Sheila Sarkar; Hitting Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism, 1994 Winter; 2 (1): 79-97.
7. Affirmations: Speaking the Self into Being By: Manini Samarth; Parnassus: Poetry in Review, 1992; 17 (1): 88-101.