Editing Gish Jen

{{Short description|American writer and speaker}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2013}}
{{Infobox writer
| name         = Gish Jen
| image        = 2015-GishJen-byRV-111-cropped.jpg 
| imagesize    = 
| caption      = Photo by Romana Vysatova, 2015
| pseudonym    = 
| birth_name   = Lillian Jen
| birth_date   = {{Birth date and age|1955|8|12}}<ref name="MELUS" />
| birth_place  = [[Long Island]], New York, U.S.
| death_date   =
| death_place  =
| occupation   = Writer, speaker
| education    = [[Harvard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[Stanford Graduate School of Business]]<br>[[Iowa Writers' Workshop]] ([[Master of Fine Arts|MFA]])
| period       = 1986 – 21st century
| genre        = novel
| subject      =
| movement     =
| notableworks = ''Typical American''<br />''Mona in the Promised Land''<br />''The Love Wife''<br />''Who's Irish?''<br />''World and Town''<br />''Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self''<br />''The Girl at the Baggage Claim:  Explaining the East-West Culture Gap''<br />''The Resisters''<br />''Thank You, Mr. Nixon''
| spouse       = David C. O'Connor
| partner      =
| children     = 2
| relatives    =
| awards       =
| signature    =
| website      = {{URL|www.gishjen.com }},  
{{URL| www.lyceumagency.com/speakers/gish-jen/}}
}}

'''Gish Jen''' (born '''Lillian Jen'''; ({{zh|c=[[wikt:任|任]][[wikt:璧|璧]][[wikt:蓮|蓮]]}}) August 12, 1955) is a contemporary American writer and speaker.<ref name="MELUS">Matsukawa, Yuko, [https://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LLzTh2QS9LgN11Nx4mPc6Q4b91T6phMtJHzSSkFQWhwp7TLyLs5H!-1778128411!1581092936?docId=5001675556 "MELUS interview: Gish Jen"], ''[[MELUS]]'', Vol. 18, 1993</ref>

==Early life and education==

Gish Jen is a second-generation Chinese American. Her parents emigrated from China in the 1940s; her mother was from [[Shanghai]] and her father was from [[Yixing]]. Born in [[Long Island]], New York,<ref>{{cite web | work = The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition | editor = Lauter, Paul | title = Gish Jen (b. 1955) | url = http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/contemporary/jen_gi.html | access-date = March 6, 2012}}</ref> she grew up in [[Queens]], then [[Yonkers, New York|Yonkers]], then [[Scarsdale, New York|Scarsdale]]. Her birth name is Lillian, but during her high school years she acquired the nickname Gish, named for actress [[Lillian Gish]].<ref name="MELUS" />

She graduated from [[Harvard University]] in 1977<ref name="thecrimson.harvard.edu">Ganguli, Ishani, [http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/2002/6/4/novelist-gish-jen-finds-literary-voice/ "Novelist Gish Jen Finds Literary Voice Outside Harvard Identity"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303202659/http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/2002/6/4/novelist-gish-jen-finds-literary-voice/ |date=March 3, 2012 }}, ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', Tuesday, June 4, 2002</ref> with a BA in [[English major|English]],<ref>[http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/fellowships/fellows_2002gjen.aspx "2001–2002 Radcliffe Institute Fellows: Gish Jen"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100814002145/http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/fellowships/fellows_2002gjen.aspx |date=August 14, 2010 }}</ref> and later attended [[Stanford Business School]] (1979–1980), but dropped out in favor of the [[University of Iowa]] [[Iowa Writers' Workshop|Writers' Workshop]], where she earned her [[Master of Fine Arts|MFA]] in fiction in 1983.<ref name="thecrimson.harvard.edu"/>

==Fiction==
Five of her short stories have been reprinted in ''[[Best American Short Stories|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 five novels: ''Typical American'', ''Mona in the Promised Land'', ''The Love Wife'', ''[[World and Town]]'' and ''The Resisters''. She has also written two collections of short fiction, ''[[Who's Irish? (short story)|Who's Irish?]]'', and ''Thank You, Mr. Nixon''.

Her first novel, ''Typical American,'' was nominated for a National Books Critics' Circle Award. Her second novel, ''Mona in the Promised Land,'' features a Chinese-American adolescent who converts to Judaism. ''The Love Wife'', her third novel, portrays an Asian American family with [[interracial marriage|interracial]] parents and both biological and adopted children.

Her fourth novel, ''World and Town,'' portrays a fragile America, its small towns challenged by globalization, development, fundamentalism, and immigration, as well as the ripples sent out by 9/11. ''World and Town'' won the 2011 Massachusetts Book Prize in fiction and was nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/2012-longlist/|title=2012 Longlist – DUBLIN Literary Award|access-date=February 11, 2017|archive-date=November 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123023507/http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/2012-longlist/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Her fifth novel, ''The Resisters'', was released in February 2020 and is a post-automation, feminist baseball dystopia. Set in the not-so-distant future, most jobs are now automated, much seacoast land is under water due to climate change, and the Internet and various social apps have been replaced by one all-seeing Alexa-like sentient Internet. The story centers around a "surplus" family with a prodigy pitching daughter where baseball becomes their field of resistance to an autocratic America.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/the-ascendance-of-bernie-sanders-and-the-novelist-gish-jen|title=The Ascendence of Bernie Sanders, and the Novelist Gish Jen|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en|access-date=2020-02-16}}</ref> A related short story ("Tell Me Everything") was commissioned by ''The New York Times'' as part of their Privacy Project and published January 5, 2020.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/03/opinion/gish-jen-privacy-surveillance.html|title=Tell Me Everything|website=The New York Times|date=January 3, 2020|language=en|access-date=2020-02-20|last1=Jen|first1=Gish}}</ref> Audible commissioned a novella spin-off called "I, Autohouse" as part of its Audible Originals series.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/03/opinion/gish-jen-privacy-surveillance.html|title=I, Autohouse|website=Audible.com|date=June 24, 2021|language=en|access-date=2022-01-07|last1=Jen|first1=Gish}}</ref>

Jen's second story collection, ''Thank You, Mr. Nixon'', was published by [[Knopf]] on February 1, 2022. It consists of eleven interconnected stories that span the 50 years since [[1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China|Nixon's historic visit to China and meeting with Chairman Mao]]. The tenth story in the collection, "No More Maybe", was published in the March 19, 2018 edition of ''The New Yorker'', and the final story in the collection, "Detective Dog", was published in the November 22, 2021 edition of ''The New Yorker'', and takes place in [[COVID-19 pandemic in New York City|COVID]]-ravaged New York City.  "Detective Dog" was selected for the "Best American Short Stories of 2022".

==Nonfiction==
In 2013 Jen published her first non-fiction book, entitled ''Tiger Writing:  Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self''. Based on the Massey Lectures that Jen delivered at Harvard in 2012, ''Tiger Writing'' explores East–West differences in self construction, and how these affect art and especially literature.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hup.harvard.edu |title=Home &#124; Harvard University Press |publisher=Hup.harvard.edu |access-date=2014-03-16}}</ref>

Jen's second work of non-fiction is "The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap," published in February 2017.  This is a provocative study of the different ideas Easterners and Westerners have about the self and society and what this means for current debates in art, education, geopolitics, and business.  Drawing on stories and personal anecdotes, as well as recent research in cultural psychology, Jen reveals how this difference shapes what we perceive, remember, say, do, and make – in short, how it shapes everything from our ideas about copying and talking in class to the difference between Apple and Alibaba.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/537621/the-girl-at-the-baggage-claim-by-gish-jen| title = The Girl at the Baggage Claim by Gish Jen: 9781101972069 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books}}</ref>

Jen has also published numerous pieces in ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The Washington Post'', and ''The New Republic'', among others. In response to the [[2021 Atlanta spa shootings]], Jen penned an op-ed for the ''Times''.<ref>gishjen.com</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/atlanta-shootings-asian-american.html|title = Opinion &#124; the Generational Split in How Asian-Americans See the Atlanta Shootings|newspaper = The New York Times|date = March 22, 2021|last1 = Jen|first1 = Gish}}</ref>

==Honors and awards==
In 2009, Princeton's [[Elaine Showalter]] devoted much attention to Jen in her survey of American women writers, "A Jury of Her Peers:  American Women Writers From [[Anne Bradstreet]] to [[Annie Proulx]]."  In an article in ''The Guardian'', Showalter elaborated, including Jen in a list of eight top authors, and pointing out that Jen's "vision of a multicultural America goes well beyond the angry rants or despairing projections of [[Philip Roth|Roth]], [[Don DeLillo|DeLillo]], McCarthy or other finalists in the [[Great American Novel]] competition."<ref>{{cite web|author=Elaine Showalter |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/09/female-novelists-usa |title=Elaine Showalter chooses the best novelists writing in the US today &#124; Books |work=The Guardian |date=2009-05-09 |access-date=2014-03-16}}</ref> In 2012, [[Junot Díaz|Junot Diaz]] concurred, calling Jen "the Great American Novelist we're always hearing about."  And in 2000, in a millennial edition of ''The Times Magazine'' in the UK, in which figures were asked to name their successors in the 21st century, [[John Updike]] picked Jen.<ref>Updike Remembered, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/updike-remembered</ref>

''Thank You, Mr. Nixon'' was longlisted for the inaugural [[Carol Shields Prize for Fiction]] in 2023.<ref>Deborah Dundas, [https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2023/03/08/5-canadians-nominated-for-first-carol-shields-prize-for-fiction-for-women-and-non-binary-writers-worth-150000-us.html "5 Canadians nominated for first Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for women and non-binary writers, worth $150,000 (U.S.)"]. ''[[Toronto Star]]'', March 8. 2023.</ref>

*2019      Honorary Fellow, Modern Languages Association
*2017      Legacy Award, Museum of Chinese in America, New York
*2015      Honorary PhD, Williams College
*2013      Named Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence, Baruch-CUNY
*2013      Story included in The Best American Short Stories of 2013 
*2012      Delivered the Massey Lectures at Harvard University (an annual lecture series sponsored by the American Studies program) 
*2011	Winner of the Massachusetts Book Prize 
*2011      Nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
*2009	Elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
*2006	Featured in a PBS American Masters Program on the American Novel
*2004     Honorary PhD, Emerson College
*2003	Received a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
*2003	Received a Fulbright Fellowship to the People's Republic of China
*2001	Received a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship
*1999	Story included in The Best American Short Stories of the Century 
*1999	Received a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction
*1995	Story included in The Best American Short Stories of 1995
*1992 	Received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
*1991 	Finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award
*1988	Received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
*1988	Story included in The Best American Short Stories of 1988
*1986	Received a Radcliffe College Bunting Institute Fellowship

==See also==
{{Portal|Literature}}
*[[List of American novelists]]
*[[Chinese American literature]]
*[[List of Asian American writers]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.gishjen.com Gish Jen website]
*{{C-SPAN|47380}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jen, Gish}}
[[Category:1955 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:American women writers of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:People from Long Island]]
[[Category:Radcliffe College alumni]]
[[Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Scarsdale, New York]]
[[Category:American short story writers of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:American novelists of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:American women novelists]]
[[Category:American women short story writers]]
[[Category:Scarsdale High School alumni]]
[[Category:Stanford University people]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American women writers]]