Gish Jen

Harman Writer-In-Residence, Fall 2013

The most recent novel by Gish Jen is World and Town. The author of three previous novels–Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land and The Love Wife–as well as a collection of stories entitled Who’s Irish?, she has published short works in The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Granta, and numerous anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike.

Grant support has come from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other sources. Shortlisted for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, she was featured in a PBS American Masters program on the American novel and recently gave the Massey lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University. In March 2013, the lectures were published by Harvard University Press as Tiger Writing: Art, Culture and the Interdependent Self.

An excerpt from World and Town

“They walked down through downtown and then up through the farms. Not heading anywhere. Just walking. But knowing it was pitch black, too. Knowing it. ‘Course those country roads were good necking–you didn’t exactly have to go find yourselves a spot. For miles it was just the stars and the tall moving trees and the two of you, finding your way, you hoped, down your own road. Doing stuff you’d heard plenty about, but not enough, it turned out, when the time came. Well, he was nervous about that part. He was nervous. But before he stopped, and turned, before he pulled her arm along his side and her hand to his back, he told her he was hers and always would be, and was not nervous about saying it at all. He was just stating the obvious.”

Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 5:45 pm

A reading and conversation with Gish Jen in the Asriel and Marie Rackow Conference Room, Room 750, Information and Technology Building, Baruch College; co-sponsored by Poets & Writers.

Gish Jen giving her presentation.

Gish Jen interacting with students after the reading.

Gish Jen Class Photo, Fall 2013 Fiction Writing Seminar