Winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction! InWaiting, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author Ha Jin draws on his intimate knowledge of contemporary China to create a novel of unexpected richness and feeling. This is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart. For more than seventeen years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young--a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits 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. Tracing 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 custom. Waiting charms and startles us  with its depiction of a China that remains hidden to Western eyes even as it moves us with its piercing vision of the universal complications of love. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Jin's quiet but absorbing second novel (after In the Pond) captures the poignant dilemma of an ordinary man who misses the best opportunities in his life simply by trying to do his dutyÄas defined first by his traditional Chinese parents and later by the Communist Party. Reflecting the changes in Chinese communism from the '60s to the '80s, the novel focuses on Lin Kong, a military doctor who agrees, as his mother is dying, to an arranged marriage. His bride, Shuyu, turns out to be a country woman who looks far older than her 26 years and who has, to Lin's great embarrassment, lotus (bound) feet. While Shuyu remains at Lin's family home in Goose Village, nursing first his mother and then his ailing father, and bearing Lin a daughter, Lin lives far away in an army hospital compound, visiting only once a year. Caught in a loveless marriage, Lin is attacted to a nurse, Manna Wu, an attachment forbidden by communist strictures. According to local Party rules, Lin cannot divorce his wife without her permission until they have been separated for 18 years. Although Jin infuses movement and some suspense into Lin's and Manna's sometimes resigned, sometimes impatient waitingÄthey will not consummate their relationship until Lin is freeÄit is only in the novel's third section, when Lin finally secures a divorce, that the story gathers real force. Though inaction is a risky subject and the thoughts of a cautious man make for a rather deliberate prose style (the first two sections describe the moments the characters choose not to act), the final chapters are moving and deeply ironic, proving again that this poet and award-winning short story writer can deliver powerful long fiction about a world alien to most Western readers. (Oct.) FYI: Jin served six years in the People's Liberation Army, and came to the U.S. in 1985. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The winner of numerous awards for his short fiction and poetry, Emory English professor Ha Jin offers his first full-length novel. It tells the story of Lin Kong, an officer and doctor living in China during the mid-1960s. The novel spans 20 years and takes readers on Kong's life journey. In the beginning, Kong follows the wishes of his parents, entering into a loveless arranged marriage and producing a daughter. Living separately from his family for the duration of his marriage, Kong falls in love with Manna Wu, a nursing student in the hospital where he works. For 18 years they remain friends but not lovers until Kong is able to secure a divorce from his wife. The author, a native of China, cleverly draws from his personal life in a Communist society to create a realistic story. Like fellow Chinese authors Pu Ning and Hong Ying, he illusrates the difficulties that one faces when living in an oppressed society. This touching story about love, honor, duty, and family speaks feelingly to readers on matters of the heart. A nice addition to most larger library fiction and Asian literature collections.ÄShirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 and is now a professor of English at Emory University. He is author of, among other works, two short-story collections: Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award, and Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for fiction in 1999.

He lives in Atlanta. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.