Waiting

Jīn Xuěfēi is a contemporary Chinese-American writer using the pen name Ha Jin. He was born in Liaoning, China. The novel, Waiting, won the National Book Awards in 1999. This moving and deeply ironic novel centers on the lives of three people. It begins in the year 1963 and stretches over a twenty-year span in China during the Cultural Revolution. Lin Kong, a deeply flawed, devoted army doctor; his humble wife Shuyu, whom his family chose for him when he was young, and Lin Kong’s girlfriend, an educated modern nurse, Manna Wu. For years he has asked his wife for a divorce, and for years she agrees, then backs out before the divorce can take place. The book contrasts city and country life, modern life with traditional, all colored with the restrictions that are part of living under communist law. Written with extraordinary precision, depth and grace, Ha Jin does not disappoint.