Gish Jen is the author of four previous novels, a book of stories, and two works of nonfiction. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Fulbright Foundation, as well as the Lannan Literary Award for fiction and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives with her husband and two children in Cambridge, Massachusetts.