Wang Ping was born in Shanghai and 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 writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 1993 and 1996. She is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Loft Literary Center, and Bush Foundation, and she was a recipient of the Lannan Residency Program in 2007. She currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and teaches creative writing at Macalester College.
