Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Most important books: Ha Jin

Ha Jin was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Waiting and War Trash; Waiting also won the National Book Award. His other books include the novel The Crazed; three short story collections: The Bridegroom, which won the Asian American Literary Award, Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award; and three books of poetry.

His latest book is A Free Life.

He recently told Newsweek about his five most important books. And addressed two related issues:
A classic book that you revisited with disappointment:

Nabokov's Pale Fire. Forced myself to reread it, and I still don't think the novel's poetry works compared with the prose.

A classic book that you haven't read:

Nabokov's Ada, partly because several friends have started it but never finished it. I will dip in soon.
Read more about Ha Jin's most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue