Ha Jin
China / United States
Plain, restrained prose in a deliberately acquired second language: bureaucratic patience and buried desire rendered with an outsider's exacting clarity.
Born Jin Xuefei, Ha Jin enlisted in China's People's Liberation Army at fourteen during the Cultural Revolution before eventually studying English literature and coming to the United States for graduate study. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre convinced him to remain in exile rather than return.
Writing in English, a language he acquired as an adult, he built a career depicting Communist-era Chinese life with spare, exacting restraint. Waiting, based on a true story he heard from his wife's family, won both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
He has taught creative writing at Boston University for decades, continuing to write exclusively in English rather than his native Mandarin.
Their books in the atlas
- 1999
WaitingLvl 4psychological novel
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