Born in Shanghai, Wang Ping grew up on a small island in the East China Sea. After three years of farming in a mountain village, she attended Beijing University. In 1985 she left China to study in the U.S., earning her Ph.D. from New York University. Her previous books include three collections of poetry; the cultural study Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China (Eugene M. Kayden Award for Best Book in the Humanities); the novel Foreign Devil; two collections of stories; a children’s book of Chinese folklore; and Life of Miracles along the Yangtze and Mississippi (AWP Award Series Winner for Creative Nonfiction). She has also co-edited and co-translated three books of poetry, including New Generation: Poetry from China Today from Hanging Loose.
She is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and many others. A photographer and multimedia artist as well as a writer, her exhibitions address global themes of industrialization, the environment, interdependency, and the people. A professor of English and founder of the Kinship of Rivers project, she currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
