Ha Jin

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Jīn Xuěfēi (Simplified Chinese: 金雪飞; Traditional Chinese: 金雪飛; born February 21, 1956) is a contemporary Chinese-American writer using the pen name Ha Jin (哈金).

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[edit] Early life

Ha Jin was born in Liaoning, China. His father was a military officer, and Jin joined the People's Liberation Army in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution. In 1981 he graduated from Heilongjiang University with a Bachelor's degree in English studies, and three years later obtained his Masters in Anglo-American literature at Shandong University.

Ha Jin was on scholarship at Brandeis University when the 1989 Tiananmen incident happened. The Chinese government's forcible put-down hastened his decision to emigrate. He remained in the United States after his Ph.D. in 1992, publishing his first book of poems, Between Silences, in 1990.

[edit] Career

He sets many of his stories and novels in China, in the fictional Muji City. He has won a number of awards for his writing, including the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel, Waiting (1999). Many of his short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories anthologies as well as smaller, indepedent journals such as "Smith & Jenkins" from Flatmancrooked. His collection Under The Red Flag (1997) won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, while Ocean of Words (1996) has been awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award. The novel War Trash (2004), set during the Korean War, won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Ha Jin currently teaches at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. He formerly taught at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Between Silences (poetry) (1990)
  • Facing Shadows (poetry) (1996)
  • Ocean of Words (short stories) (1996)
  • Under the Red Flag (short stories) (1997)
  • In the Pond (novel) (1998)
  • Waiting (novel) (1999)
  • The Bridegroom (short stories) (2000)
  • Wreckage (poetry) (2001)
  • The Crazed (novel) (2002)
  • War Trash (novel) (2004)
  • A Free Life (novel) (2007)

[edit] External links