The Americanization of Ha Jin
January 30th, 2008
For your Fall quarter book review, several of you picked Ha Jin’s War Trash or as I remember one of this other books, Waiting. I was reading Newsweek last night and it had this nice, short feature on books that have influenced him. He is a winner of the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; no small feat for a guy who writes in his second language. Tonight I was doing some more digging on him on the Internet and came across this 2007 Newsweek article — click HERE. What a fascinating man and unique life he has lived!
(On a related note, I read each book review before Christmas. I usually made a brief comment to your review, but due to the number of reviews (times 3 over the year), I am unable to leave extensive comments (as was noted would be the case in the syllabus). For a few of you, I could not post a comment unless/until you alter your blog comment setting to allow comments from “anonymous” or “other” as requested in the syllabus (I always type my name when I leave a comment using either), or, your blog requires me/the reader to register for a Google or MSN Hotmail account in order to leave a comment. Please check this, and if you can plug in the “anonymous” or “other” option for a reader to comment please do so. But if your blog is one that requires me to register to comment, I am afraid you are stuck with that format, and that’s okay — just know I do read your reviews, but am unable to leave a comment. If this all makes little sense, surf a few of your classmates blogs and reviews and you will see what I am referring to.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Gary Chou | January 31st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I am proud of him! Wow, a Chinese born in the midst of Cultural Revolution, from the Northeast nonetheless, and not even from Beijing U, could be nominated for Pulitzer Prize!
I think Chinese literature/language is full of its delicate flavors and complexities and subtle references to ancient poetry/history. They are beautiful and moving, yet unaccessible to non-Chinese speakers as all is lost in translation.
It is really frustrating to watch Chinese movie and read the horrible English translation; read English-translated works originally written in Chinese (e.g. Dream of Red Chamber), etc. I just want to burn them! I think American audience, judging those translated junk, would think Chinese language is void of any substance.
Anyway, I once read the biography of another famous Chinese writer who wrote in English, his name is Lin Yutang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang
Lin dedicated his life work into bridging East and West through writing beautiful novels about China and Chinese cultures in English and acquired international fame. He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature numerous times!
2. Chris White | February 1st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Jin’s work really is incredible when you realize that he is writing in his second language. Although his English writing isn’t overly complicated, he does an amazing job expressing his characters emotions and developing the story. Pretty good for someone who was “never terribly interested in learning English.” Jin’s knowledge of China is evident in his work. It is unfortunate and ironic, however, that such a talented author is unable to receive the recognition he deserves from his home country. Waiting: A Novel was awarded the National Book Award in 1999. Despite this acclaim, Waiting is censored in the very country in which it takes place. Chinese officials have accused the book of promoting old stereotypes of the Chinese people and “uglifying” China on the behalf of the United States. Chinese authorities were upset over the book’s depiction of the characters’ longing to be freed of political restrictions. The Newsweek article about his life is remarkable. He really beat the odds to become a successful writer, although none of that success has been in his home country.
3. Andrew Steen | February 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Generally I don’t enjoy reading, and few writers capture my attention for more than a few pages, but I began War Trash a few days ago, and read 78 pages before it even left my fingers. Ha Jin is a great writer because of his tremendous amount of character, which seeps out in his vivid Korean war descriptions. It’s nice reading novels written by credible authors.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed