Gish Jen is a second generation Chinese American. Her parents emigrated from China in the 1940s, her mother from Shanghai and her father from Yixing. She grew up in Queens, NY, then Yonkers, then Scarsdale. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1977 with a BA in English, and later attended Stanford Business School, but dropped out in favor of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned her MFA in fiction in 1983.
Several of her short stories have been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories. Her piece "Birthmates", was selected as one of The Best American Short Stories of The Century by John Updike. Her works include three novels: Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, and The Love Wife. She has also written a collection of short fiction, Who's Irish.
Her first novel, Typical American, attempts to redefine Americanness as a preoccupation with identity. "As soon as you ask yourself the question, "What does it mean to be Irish-American, Iranian-American, Greek-American, you are American," she has said.
Her second novel, Mona in the Promised Land concerns the invention of ethnicity. The Love Wife, her third novel, portrays an Asian American family with interracial parents and both biological and adopted children as "the new American family." She asks the question "What is a family?" as a way of asking, "What is a nation?"
A new novel, World and Town will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2010.
Jen steps outside of the "ethnic writer" role in the sense that she does not focus primarily on ethnicity, but instead challenges the reader to ask him/herself what it means to be an American. In the past, the only Asian American writers to receive acclaim by a majority white readership were those who portrayed Asians as that readership expected (see for example, Jade Snow Wong's popular Fifth Chinese Daughter). When other Asian American authors, such as Louis Chu (Eat a Bowl of Tea), presented a more nuanced and complicated picture of Asian American life, their works were not read by a larger public. In contrast, Gish Jen, alongside other contemporary Asian American authors, has received acclaim from both Asian American communities and a more mainstream, often white, readership. While many of her protagonists are Chinese or of Chinese decent, her goal is not to educate readers about the foreign world of Chinese American culture; it is instead to ask her audience to consider the changing face of American identity. While ethnicity is addressed in her work, it is not her primary concern.
Jen's characters are complex individuals who undergo transformations not based on essential formulas of ethnic identity. They live lives that seek to go beyond societal boundaries, be it through conventional notions of family or what it means to be "Asian American." Breaking down the duality built into "Asian American" suggests that one cannot quantify each “half” as if identity were a chemical composition. Jen's writing is "post-ethnic" in that it goes beyond cultural constructions, greatly expanding the "immigrant novel," and moving in a direction that seeks to re-define what it means to be American.
"Interethnic Relationships in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker and Gish Jen's Birthmates." By: Brada-Williams, Noelle. pp. 18—25 IN: Goldblatt, Roy (ed.); Nyman, Jopi (ed. and introd.); Stotesbury, John A. (ed.); Singh, Amritjit (afterword); Close Encounters of an Other Kind: New Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and American Studies. Joensuu, Finland: Faculty of Humanities, University of Joensuu; 2005. xv, 278 pp. (book article)
"A Quartet of Voices in Recent American Literature."She hates to write but her dad madeher. By: Burns, Gerald T.; Philippine American Studies Journal, 1991; 3: 1-8. (journal article)
"Material Bodies and Performative Identities: Mona, Neil, and the Promised Land." By: Byers, Michele; Philip Roth Studies, 2006 Fall; 2 (2): 102-20. (journal article)
"Disjuncture at Home: Mapping the Domestic Cartographies of Transnationalism in Gish Jen's The Love Wife." By: Chen, Shu-ching; Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Literary and Cultural Studies, 2006 Winter; 37 (2): 1-32. (journal article)
"Literary Reading and Intercultural Learning-Understanding Ethnic American Fiction in the EFL-Classroom." By: Donnerstag, Jürgen; Amerikastudien/American Studies, 1992; 37 (4): 595-611. (journal article)
"From Story to Novel and Back Again: Gish Jen's Developing Art of Short Fiction." By: Feddersen, R. C.. pp. 349—58 IN: Kaylor, Noel Harold, Jr. (ed., preface and foreword); Creative and Critical Approaches to the Short Story. Lewiston, NY: Mellen; 1997. v, 488 pp. (book article)
"Gish Jen." By: Feddersen, R. C.. pp. 196—208 IN: Fallon, Erin (ed.); Feddersen, R. C. (ed. and introd.); Kurtzleben, James (ed.); Lee, Maurice A. (ed.); Rochette-Crawley, Susan (ed.); Rohrberger, Mary (preface); A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English. Westport, CT: Greenwood, for Society for the Study of the Short Story; 2001. xxxiv, 432 pp. (book article)
"Reinventing a Chinese American Women's Tradition in Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land." By: Feng, Pin-chia; EurAmerica: A Journal of European and American Studies, 2002 Dec; 32 (4): 675-704. (journal article)
"Immigrant Dreams and Civic Promises: (Con-)Testing Identity in Early Jewish American Literature and Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land" By: Furman, Andrew; MELUS, 2000 Spring; 25 (1): 209-26. (journal article)
"The Redefinition of the 'Typical Chinese' in Gish Jen's Typical American." By: Huang, Betsy; Hitting Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism, 1997 Summer; 4 (2): 61-77. (journal article)
"'Cheap, On Sale, American Dream': Contemporary Asian American Women Writers' Responses to American Success Mythologies." By: Kafka, Phillipa. pp. 105—28 IN: Blazek, William (ed. and introd.); Glenday, Michael K. (ed. and introd.); American Mythologies: Essays on Contemporary Literature. Liverpool, England: Liverpool UP; 2005. x, 305 pp. (book article)
"Imagined Cities of China." By: Lee, A. Robert; Wasafiri: Journal of Caribbean, African, Asian and Associated Literatures and Film, 1995 Autumn; 22: 25-30. (journal article)
"Imagined Cities of China: Timothy Mo's London, Sky Lee's Vancouver, Fae Myenne Ng's San Francisco and Gish Gen's New York." By: Lee, A. Robert; Hitting Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism, 1996 Fall; 4 (1): 103-19. (journal article)
"Failed Performances of the Nation in Gish Jen's Typical American." By: Lee, Rachel. pp. 63—79 IN: Franklin, Cynthia (ed. and introd.); Hsu, Ruth (ed.); Kosanke, Suzanne (ed.); Navigating Islands and Continents: Conversations and Contestations in and around the Pacific. Honolulu, HI: College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, University of Hawaii; 2000. xxx, 275 pp. (book article)
"Gish Jen." By: Lee, Rachel. pp. 215—32 IN: Cheung, King-Kok (ed. and introd.); Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers. Honolulu, HI: U of Hawaii P, with UCLA Asian American Studies Center; 2000. 402 pp. (book article)
The Americas of Asian American Literature: Gendered Fictions of Nation and Transnation By: Lee, Rachel C.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP; 1999. xi, 205 pp. (book)
The Americas of Asian-American Literature: Nationalism, Gender, and Sexuality in Bulosan's 'America Is in the Heart', Jen's 'Typical American', and Hagedorn's 'Dogeaters' By: Lee, Rachel C.; Dissertation Abstracts International, 1996 Feb; 56 (8): 3126A-27A. U of California, Los Angeles, 1995. (dissertation abstract)
"When the West Is One: Undoing and Re-Doing the Hegemony of U. S. Culture in Diasporic Writing by Chinese American Women." By: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. pp. 129—38 IN: Atherton, John (ed. and introd.); Bruyère, Claire (ed. and introd.); Lire en Amérique. Paris, France: Institut d'Etudes Anglophones, Université Paris VII-Denis Diderot; 1992. 172 pp. (book article)
"Mona on the Phone: The Performative Body and Racial Identity in Mona in the Promised Land." By: Lin, Erika T.; MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2003 Summer; 28 (2): 47-57. (journal article)
"Cultural Cross-Dressing in Mona in the Promised Land." By: Ling, Amy. pp. 227—36 IN: Davis, Rocío G. (ed and introd.); Ludwig, Sämi (ed. and introd.); Asian American Literature in the International Context: Readings on Fiction, Poetry, and Performance. Hamburg, Germany: Lit; 2002. 265 pp. (book article)
"Rice Talk: Discoursing Asian American Literature." By: Lopez, Ferdinand M.; Unitas: A Quarterly for the Arts and Sciences, 2003 Mar; 76 (1): 76-97. (journal article)
"American Exceptionalism and Multiculturalism: Myths and Realities." By: Madsen, Deborah L.. pp. 177—87 IN: Maeder, Beverly (ed. and introd.); Representing Realities: Essays on American Literature, Art and Culture. Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr; 2003. 228 pp. (book article)
"Artefact, Commodity, Fetish: The Aesthetic Turn in Chinese American Literary Study." By: Madsen, Deborah L.. pp. 185—97 IN: Wang, Jennie (ed. and introd.); Querying the Genealogy: Comparative and Transnational Studies in Chinese American Literature. Shanghai, China: Shanghai yi wen chu ban she; 2006. 557 pp. (book article)
"Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land." By: Partridge, Jeffrey F. L.. pp. 215—32 IN: Parini, Jay (ed. and introd.); American Writers: Classics, Volume II. New York, NY: Scribner's; 2004. xiv, 336 pp. (book article)
Crossroads and Mirrors in New World Literature, 1814-1997: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Charles Chesnutt, and Gish Jen By: Poehlmann, Bess Lyons; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 2004 June; 64 (12): 4455. Brandeis U, 2004. (dissertation abstract)
"Affirmations: Speaking the Self into Being." By: Samarth, Manini; Parnassus: Poetry in Review, 1992; 17 (1): 88-101. (journal article)
"Writing about the Things That Are Dangerous: A Conversation with Gish Jen." By: Satz, Martha; Southwest Review, 1993 Winter; 78 (1): 132-40. (journal article)
"The Symbolic Triune of Gish Jen's Typical American." By: Schaefer, Judith; Notes on Contemporary Literature, 2003 Sept; 33 (4): 10-12. (journal article)
"Gish Jen (Lillian Jen)." By: Simal, Begoña. pp. 142—54 IN: Madsen, Deborah L. (ed. and introd.); Asian American Writers. Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. xxiv, 460 pp. (book article)
"Gish Jen: 'The Book That Hormones Wrote.'" By: Smith, Wendy; Publishers Weekly, June 7, 1999; 246 (23): 59-58. (journal article)
"Success Chinese American Style: Gish Jen's Typical American." By: TuSmith, Bonnie; Proteus: A Journal of Ideas, 1994 Fall; 11 (2): 21-26. (journal article)
"'An Identity Switch': A Critique of Multiculturalism in Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land." By: Wang, Chih-ming. pp. 139—54 IN: Brada-Williams, Noelle (ed. and introd.); Chow, Karen (ed. and introd.); Crossing Oceans: Reconfiguring American Literary Studies in the Pacific Rim. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP; 2004. xiv, 200 pp. (book article)
"'An Onstage Costume Change': Modernity and Immigrant Experience in Gish Jen's Typical American." By: Wang, Chih-ming; NTU Studies in Language and Literature, 2002 Dec; 11: 71-96. (journal article)
"Writing on the Slash: Experience, Identification, and Subjectivity in Gish Jen's Novels." By: Wang, Chih-ming; Sun Yat-sen Journal of Humanities, 2001 Oct; 13: 103-17. (journal article)
"But What in the World Is an Asian American? Culture, Class and Invented Traditions in Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land." By: Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia; EurAmerica: A Journal of European and American Studies, 2002 Dec; 32 (4): 641-74. (journal article)
"Becoming Americans: Gish Jen's Typical American." By: Xiaojing, Zhou. pp. 151—63 IN: Payant, Katherine B. (ed. and introd.); Rose, Toby (ed. and epilogue); The Immigrant Experience in North American Literature: Carving Out a Niche. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1999. xxvii, 190 pp. (book article)
