He is a professor of English at University of California, Santa Barbara, one of the judges of National Book Award in 2011, a finalist of American McCarthy Award, a consultant of editorial board of American World Literature Today and another Chinese winner (2014-2015) of American Guggenheim Award after Bei Dao. 

His main English work, Charlie Chan, was one of The New York Times one hundred best books for 2010, which won Edgar Allan Poe Award and nominated for National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. In addition, his Transpacific Imaginations and Transpacific Displacement managed to get a good market reputation.

His main Chinese translation works include Madman with Broom, The Pisan Cantos and Selected Essays of Ezra Pound and Selected Language Poems: An English/Chinese Bilingual Anthology.