Leta has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Dissent Magazine, Ms. Magazine, BBC, CNN and others. She won the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for her China reporting. Fluent in Mandarin, Leta is the first American to receive a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University's Department of Sociology in Beijing and is currently an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University Weatherhead East Asian Institute. She has a master's degree from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree with high honors from Harvard University. Leta’s latest book, Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China (Verso), was named one of the best books of 2018 by Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Foreign Policy Interrupted, Bitch Media and Autostraddle. Leta's first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (Zed 2014), was named one of the top 5 China books of 2014 by the Asia Society’s ChinaFile, one of the best books in 2014 by Foreign Policy Interrupted and one of the best Asian books of 2014 by Asia House. Twitter