Rachel DeWoskin is the author of Two Menus: Poems (The University of Chicago Press, 2020); Banshee (Dottir Press, 2019); Someday We Will Fly (Penguin, 2019); Blind (Penguin, 2014); Big Girl Small (FSG, 2011); Repeat After Me (The Overlook Press, 2009); and Foreign Babes in Beijing (WW Norton, 2005). She is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts at the University of Chicago, and an affiliated faculty member of the Centers for East Asian Studies and Jewish Studies.
DeWoskin’s work explores peripheries and the transnational experience, particularly questions of how human beings communicate across linguistic, cultural, national, and physical boundaries. Her memoir, Foreign Babes in Beijing, investigates the social landscape of China during a contemporary moment of vast cultural transformation, as the country lurched inexorably into the 21st century. Foreign Babes in Beijing has been developed as a television series for BBC America after being optioned and developed by Paramount, HBO, and Sundance. DeWoskin's latest novel, Banshee, is being developed as a feature film starring actress Ally Sheedy.
DeWoskin lived in China for much of her twenties and continues to spend summers there. She works on translations of Chinese poetry and Chinese musical lyrics; her most recent translation is of Li Bai's "Parting at Changgan," accompanied by an essay on the joys and difficulties of translating Tang poetry: https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/parting-at-changgan and https://agnionline.bu.edu/blog/on-translating-li-bais-parting-at-changgan