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Pantheon
November 2007
On Sale: October 30, 2007
672 pages
ISBN: 0375424652
EAN: 9780375424656
Hardcover
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Fiction
From Ha Jin, the widely-acclaimed, award-winning author of
Waiting and War Trash, comes a novel that takes his fiction
to a new setting: 1990s America. We follow the Wu
family--father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao--as they
fully sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the
1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and begin a new, free life in
the United States. At first, their future seems well-assured--Nan’s graduate
work in political science at Brandeis University would
guarantee him a teaching position in China--but after the
fallout from Tiananmen, Nan’s disillusionment turns him
towards his first love, poetry. Leaving his studies, he
takes on a variety of menial jobs while Pingping works for a
wealthy widow as a cook and housekeeper. As Nan struggles to
adapt to a new language and culture, his love of poetry and
literature sustains him through difficult, lean years. Ha Jin creates a moving, realistic, but always hopeful
narrative as Nan moves from Boston to New York to Atlanta,
ever in search of financial stability and success, even in a
culture that sometimes feels oppressive and hostile. As
Pingping and Taotao slowly adjust to American life, Nan
still feels a strange, paradoxical attachment to his
homeland, though he violently disagrees with Communist
policy. And severing all ties--including his love for a
woman who rejected him in his youth--proves to be more
difficult than he could have ever imagined. Ha Jin’s prodigious talents are evident in this powerful new
book, which brilliantly brings to life the struggles and
successes that characterize the contemporary immigrant
experience. With its lyrical prose and confident grace, A
Free Life is a luminous addition to the works of one of the
preeminent writers in America today.
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