Gish Jen has published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, among others. Her first novel, Typical American, was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award; she has since published a sequel, Mona in the Promised Land; a story collection, Who's Irish?; and, most recently, a new novel, The Love Wife.

She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.  She won the Lannan Literary Award in 2001.