Gish Jen

Pirjo Ahokas (University of Turku)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

Born 1955
Activity 1988-ongoing

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Cultural Identities

Chinese American

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Jen's Works

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Gish Jen is one of the most well-known contemporary Asian American authors. She has published four popular novels and a collection of short stories. Like Jen herself, the protagonists of her mainly family-centered fiction are of Chinese American descent. Jen’s writing style is humorous, but also contains dark and questioning undercurrents that frequently emerge to cast a shadow over the concluding chapters or paragraphs of her work. Jen’s fiction is best appreciated in the context of Asian immigration, the post-Civil Rights era, feminism and colorblind multiculturalism.

Gish Jen was born in 1955 in Long Island, New York, and raised in Queens, Yonkers and Scarsdale. Her parents were middle-class immigrants from China. Originally named Lillian, the future novelist adopted the nickname

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2532 words

Citation: Ahokas, Pirjo. "Gish Jen". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 August 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12935, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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