"When the Chinese premier visits Harvard, international student Pei Lulu encounters a lone woman protesting who will drastically change her understanding of the People's Republic and her own place in the world. For the first time, Lulu learns of the 1989 protest movement and the government’s violent response. Determined to find out more, she seeks answers from her family, who share surprising stories of their involvement. A formative university course prompts Lulu to pursue a line of PHD research focused on the protest movement. As Lulu navigates the nuances of academic politics in America, she also increasingly draws the attention of the Chinese government. Hamstrung and restricted in both China and the US, Lulu must ultimately come to terms with what it means to live in exile – forever between worlds. At once a compelling coming-of-age tale and a poignant tribute to the courage of activists, LOOKING FOR TANK MAN is a timely novel that explores with great depth and nuance the Tiananmen tragedy and warns against the dangers of authoritarian regimes."
"Through the life of a remarkable woman, based on pioneering stage director Sun Weishi (1921–1968), this epic novel immerses us in the multifaceted history of China’s Communist Party.
As a promising young actress, Sun Weishi made the critical decision to pursue her studies in Moscow—with the blessing of her influential adoptive father, Zhou Enlai, and Mao himself. The valuable insights she gained there during World War II, most notably the significance of characters’ inner lives, would enable her to excel back in China, where she produced works by Chekhov and Gogol, and other socially progressive dramas, such as an adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her striking career as China’s first female director of modern spoken drama (Huaju) would be derailed with the advent of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, which put her once again at odds with an old nemesis: Jiang Ching, a fellow actress who schemed her way to the top as Mao’s fourth and final wife.
Through the decades-long rivalry between these two complex women, and their differing approaches to the men in power who shaped their lives, Ha Jin deftly explores the ideals of communism and the reality of the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, the novel captivates us with Sun Weishi’s personal struggles and triumphs, as she navigates friendship, love, art, and politics amid the great events of the twentieth century."
"From the universally admired, National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Waiting-a timely novel that follows a famous Chinese singer severed from his country, as he works to find his way in the United States
At the end of a U.S. tour with his state-supported choir, popular singer Yao Tian takes a private gig in New York to pick up some extra cash for his daughter's tuition fund, but the consequences of his choice spiral out of control. On his return to China, Tian is informed that the sponsors of the event were supporters of Taiwan's secession, and that he must deliver a formal self-criticism. When he is asked to forfeit his passport to his employer, Tian impulsively decides instead to return to New York to protest the government's threat to his artistic integrity.
With the help of his old friend Yabin, Tian's career begins to flourish in the United States. But he is soon placed on a Chinese government blacklist and thwarted by the state at every turn, and it becomes increasingly clear that he may never return to China unless he denounces the freedoms that have made his new life possible. Tian nevertheless insists on his identity as a performer, refusing to give up his art. Moving, important, and strikingly relevant to our times, A Song Everlasting is a story of hope in the face of hardship from one of our most celebrated authors."
"From the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting: a narratively driven, deeply human biography of the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai-also known as Li Po
In his own time (701-762), Li Bai's poems-shaped by Daoist thought and characterized by their passion, romance, and lust for life-were never given their proper due by the official literary gatekeepers. Nonetheless, his lines rang out on the lips of court entertainers, tavern singers, soldiers, and writers throughout the Tang dynasty, and his deep desire for a higher, more perfect world gave rise to his nickname, the Banished Immortal. Today, Bai's verses are still taught to China's schoolchildren and recited at parties and toasts; they remain an inextricable part of the Chinese language.
With the instincts of a master novelist, Ha Jin draws on a wide range of historical and literary sources to weave the great poet's life story. He follows Bai from his origins on the western frontier to his ramblings travels as a young man, which were filled with filled with striving but also with merry abandon, as he raised cups of wine with friends and fellow poets. Ha Jin also takes us through the poet's later years-in which he became swept up in a military rebellion that altered the course of China's history-and the mysterious circumstances of his death, which are surrounded by legend.
The Banished Immortal is an extraordinary portrait of a poet who both transcended his time and was shaped by it, and whose ability to live, love, and mourn without reservation produced some of the most enduring verses."
"From the award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash: an urgent, timely novel that follows an aspiring author, an outrageous book idea, and a lone journalist's dogged quest for truth in the Internet age.
New York, 2005. Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin is a fiercely principled reporter at a small news agency that produces a website read by the Chinese diaspora around the world. Danlin's explosive exposés have made him legendary among readers-and feared by Communist officials. But his newest assignment may be his undoing: investigating his ex-wife, Yan Haili, an unscrupulous novelist who has willingly become a pawn of the Chinese government in order to realize her dreams of literary stardom.
Haili's scheme infuriates Danlin both morally and personally-he will do whatever it takes to expose her as a fraud. But in outing Haili, he is also provoking her powerful political allies, and he will need to draw on all of his journalistic cunning to emerge from this investigation with his career-and his life-still intact. A brilliant, darkly funny story of corruption, integrity, and the power of the pen, The Boat Rocker is a tour de force of modern fiction."
"From the award-winning author of Waiting: a spare, haunting tale of espionage and conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries-China and the United States-and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. When Lilian Shang, born and raised in America, discovers her father's diary after the death of her parents, she is shocked by the secrets it contains. She knew that her father, Gary, convicted decades ago of being a mole in the CIA, was the most important Chinese spy ever caught. But his diary-an astonishing chronicle of his journey from 1949 Shanghai to Okinawa to Langley, Virginia-reveals the pain and longing that his double life entailed. The trail leads Lilian to China, to her father's long-abandoned other family, whose existence she and her Irish American mother never suspected. As Lilian begins to fathom her father's dilemma-torn between loyalty to his motherland and the love he came to feel for his adopted country-she sees how his sense of duty distorted his life. But as she starts to understand that Gary, too, had been betrayed, she finds that it is up to her to prevent his tragedy from damaging yet another generation of her family."
"Author Ha Jin's celebrated works have claimed several top literary awards, including three Pushcart Prizes. In Nanjing Requiem, the Japanese are poised to invade Nanjing. The dean of Jinling Women's College, Minnie Vautrin mistakenly believes her American citizenship will protect the school. But Vautrin's life becomes a daily struggle as the school becomes a refugee camp-and the slaughter of refugees begins. 'Jin paints a convincing, harrowing portrait of heroism in the face of brutality.'-Publishers Weekly"
"Best-selling, National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin displays his impressive storytelling gifts in this rich examination of contemporary China and the civil unrest at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Professor Yang suffers a stroke and is confined to a hospital bed. Now Jian Wan, Yang's brightest student and future son-in-law, must suspend his rigorous studies to care for his mentor. Jian dutifully keeps watch as Yang begins raving madly, condemning everything while pleading with unseen tormentors.
Has Yang gone insane, or is he no longer capable of hiding painful secrets? With his own beliefs and expectations rattled, Jian begins to see the world in a much different light - just as the fateful events at Tiananmen Square begin.
The Crazed is a daring and powerful novel that puts a human face on the brutal injustice that continues to haunt China. Narrator Norm Lee expertly voices the confusion of a young man struggling to understand the world around him."
