A Distant Center

Ha Jin was born in Liaoning Province, China and grew up during the Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s while serving in the People's Liberation Army. He left the army at age 19 to study English and earned an M.A. at Shandong University before traveling to the United States for his Ph.D. at Brandeis University. Electing to remain in the U.S. after the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Jin has since published eight novels, four short story collections, three poetry collections, and a book of essays on the language and literature of migration. He has twice received the PEN/Faulkner Award, for War Trash (2004) and for Waiting (1999), which also won the National Book Award. A leading voice in Asian-American literature and one of the so-called of "Misty Poets," Jin now serves as Director of the Creative Writing Program at Boston University.