For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a devoted and ambitious doctor, has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Mannu Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young. Every year he visits her in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce.
In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's passionate love is stretched ever more taut by the passing years. Every summer, his compliant wife agrees to a divorce but then backs out. This time, Lin promises, will be different.
Racing these lives through their summer of decision and beyond, Ha Jin vividly conjures the texture of daily life in a place where the demands of human longing must contend with the weight of centuries of wisdom.
About the Author
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of two books of poetry; two collections of stories, Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1997, and Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction in 1996; and In the Pond, a novel. He lives near Atlanta, where he is a professor at Emory University.
Industry Reviews
"Beautiful and compelling" - Daily Mail
"Dreamy and beautifully written... Reading it will take you into a different world altogether" - Marie Claire
"A deliciously comic novel" - The Times
"Imagine if Romeo and Juliet had been made to stretch out their passion for 18 years, without consummating their love. Now imagine them in China during the crazy bureaucracy of Mao's Cultural Revolution, unable to talk in private let alone kiss... the insights into Chinese culture and the complexities of human longing are beautiful and compelling" - Daily Mail
"A classic folktale...an extraordinary novel" - Independent
"A simple love story that transcends cultural barriers... Convincing and rich in detail... Filled with an earthy poetic grace." - Chicago Tribune
"Luminous... Eloquent... [Waiting] provides... a crash course in Chinese society during and since the Cultural Revolution, and a more leisurely but nonetheless compelling exploration of the less exotic terrain that is the human heart." - The New York Times Book Review
"[Ha Jin's] writing is steeped in wit, rich metaphorical underpinnings and... endless and wonderful detail." - The Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Extraordinary... A remarkably austere love story, suffused with irony and subtlety." - Chicago Sun-Times
"Subtle and complex - his best work to date. A moving meditation on the effects of time upon love." - The Washington Post
"A high achievement indeed." - Ian Buruma, The New York Review of Books
"A portrait of Chinese provincial life that terrifies with its emptiness even more than with its all-pervasive vulgarity. The poet in [Jin] intersperses these human scenes with achingly beautiful vignettes of natural beauty." - Los Angeles Times
"A simple love story that transcends cultural barriers... From the idyllic countryside to the small towns in northeast China, Jin's depictions are filled with an earthy poetic grace... Jin's account of daily life in China is convincing and rich in detail." - The Chicago Tribune
"Compassionate, earthy, robust, and wise, Waiting blends provocative allegory with all-too-human comedy. The result touches and reveals, bringing to life a singular world in its spectacular intricacy." - Gish Jen, author of Who's Irish?
"A remarkable love story. Ha Jin's understanding of the human heart and the human condition transcends borders and time. Waiting is an outstanding literary achievement." - Lisa See, author of On Gold Mountain
