For the very first time, you can find all the 19 (nineteen) Ha Jin books free online in place, where you can read and/or download.
You do not need to scour the internet to locate this Chinese-American poet and novelist Ha Jin’s free e-books or Ha Jin writing anymore.
They are all curated right here.
In addition, I have also included related or relevant free books and free movies.
Ha Jin Writing
To date (November 2021), Ha Jin has published nine novels, four collections of stories, four volumes of poetry, a collection of essays and one non-fiction (biography).
His work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
You can read and/or download Ha Jin free books all in one place.
Saboteur Short Story PDF
I have also included the short story “Saboteur” which was first published in The Antioch Review in 1996.
This story was selected for 1997 edition of “The Best American Short Stories” anthology series, and included in his short story collection “The Bridegroom”.
A Song Everlasting: A Novel
You can even find Ha Jin’s latest (2021) novel “A Song Everlasting” in the list below.
The book title “A Song Everlasting” is said to be taken from a famous Tang Dynasty poem by poet Bai Juyi (白居易).
Bai Juyi is also known by his courtesy name Letian (樂天).
This Chinese poem by Bai Juyi is titled 長恨歌, and it is commonly translated in English as “A Song Of Everlasting Regret ” or “Song Of Long Regret“.
For more of Bai Juyi poems, click here, here, here, and here.
It is about the the Tang emperor, Xuanzong, and his favorite concubine, Yang Yuhuan (楊玉環) aka Yang Guifei.
She is one of the “The Four Beauties” or “Four Great Beauties” (四大美女); who were renowned for their beauty.
READ ALSO:
Listen to this Chinese song from the poem “A Song Of Everlasting Regret”.
Two Free Movies About Yang Yuhan or YangGifei
There are two movies which features this oriental beauty, Yang Yuhuan.
The 2015 Chinese epic romance war film “Lady Of The Dynasty” (王朝的女人·楊貴妃).
The character Yang Yuhuan is played by Fan Bingbing.
Joan Chen and Leon Lai Ming are also in this film.
You can watch this free movie “Lady Of The Dynasty” (with English & Chinese subtitles) over here.
The other movie about is called “Legend Of The Demon Cat” (妖猫传) and it is directed by award-winning director Chen Kaige of “Farewell My Concubine” fame.
You can watch this free film “Legend Of The Demon Cat” (Chinese subtitle only) over here.
The links of all the 19 free books listed here, they all lead directly to the respective websites, where the books are.
Most of the free books shared here have multiple links to choose from.
There are more than eighty (80) links to choose from to read Ha Jin free books from numerous sources.
All of these Ha Jin free books online come in various formats: pdf, epub and mobi.
In fact, many of the free novels by Ha Jin can be read directly online.
Who Is Ha Jin
For the uninitiated, Ha Jin (哈金 ) is actually the pen name of the famous Chinese poet and novelist Xuefei Jin (金雪飞 ).
Ha Jin is from Liaoning Province, China.
Now he is a U. S. citizen and lives in Foxboro, Boston.
Currently, he is a professor in the creative writing program at Boston University.
When he was younger, Xuefei Jin joined the Little Red Guard (红小兵) during the Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
Then at the tender age of 14, Xuefei Jin served the The People’s Liberation Army.
In 1997, he attended Heilongjiang University in Harbin as an English major.
In 1981, he received a B.A. in English.
Xuefei Jin or Ha Jin then studied American literature at Shandong University, where he received an M.A. in 1984.
The following year (1985), he went to the United States to do graduate work at Brandeis University, from which he earned a Ph.D. in English in 1993.
At that time, Jin studied fiction writing at Boston University with the novelist Leslie Epstein.
READ ALSO: You can find free Leslie Epstein books in Internet Archive.
He planned to complete his doctorate and return to teach at a university in China.
However, he chose to remain in the United States after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June 1989.
In the beginning, Ha Jin wasn’t serious about writing.
In 1986, American poet, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Frank Bidart was impressed by one of Ha Jin’s poems, “The Dead Soldier’s Talk”.
Bidart read it over the phone to Jonathan Galassi, who was then poetry editor of The Paris Review.
Galassi immediately accepted the poem, and it was published in The Paris Review, Issue101, Winter, 1986.
This poem is about the September 1969 shipwreck accident on the Tumen/Tuman River (aka Doom river), where a young Chinese soldier was drowned saving a plaster statue of Chairman Mao.
The dead soldier was posthumously awarded with Merit Citation 2, and was buried at a mountain foot in Hunchun County, Jilin province.
In 1990, this poem is included in his first published book “Between Silences: A Voice From China” on pages 5-6.
This book of poetry is one of the nineteen Ha Jin book free online listed below.
Back in 1976, at the age of 20, Ha Jin started learning the English language by tuning in to an English learning radio broadcast for half an hour every day.
According to an article, Xuefei Jin wanted to master the English language, so that he could read the English translation of “The Condition Of The Working Class In England”.
READ ALSO: The above 1984 book was written by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels.
It’s original title in German is “Die Lage Der Arbeitenden Klasse In England”.
It is about the industrial working class in Victorian England.
Die Lage Der Arbeitenden Klasse In England
Click on any of these: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3
Condition Of The Working Class in England
Click on any of these: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4
Ha Jin is a good story-teller, who writes in simple unadorned English.
Most of his stories and novels are set in China, in the fictional Muji City during the Cultural Revolution.
For “War Trash”, he moved it to Korea, while “A Free Life” is primarily set in the United States.
With just more than ten years after Jin began writing seriously in English, his second novel “Waiting” won the US National Book Award.
This award-winning novel is based on a true story that Jin heard from his wife Lisha Bian when they were visiting her family at an army hospital in China.
In his three-decade writing career in the US, Ha Jin has won a slew of awards for his writing.
In 2000, his acclaimed novel “Waiting” was chosen as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Similarly, in 2005, his novel “War Trash” was again nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
These two great novels are available among the 19 Ha Jin free books which you can read online or download from the big list below.
Waiting Ha Jin Movie
Stop waiting… there is NO such movie which is supposed to be based on Ha Jin’s 1999 book “Waiting”.
The story is about a doctor in China’s Revolutionary Army, trapped in an arranged marriage, who falls in love with a nurse.
There was so much talk about turning this Ha Jin’s novel into a movie, but did not materialize.
According to an online source, this “Waiting” (等待) movie supposed to be released back in 2009.
It stars Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro, and directed by award-winning Hong Kong Peter Chan Ho-sun.
Ha Jin Writing Awards
1992: Pushcart Prize XVII for “My Best Soldier” (from Ocean Of Words)
1993: Kenyon Review Prize for Literary Excellence in Fiction
1994: Pushcart Prize XIX for “In Broad Daylight” (from Under The Red Flag)
1996: Pushcart Prize XXI for “A Man-To-Be” (from Under The Red Flag)
1996: Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for “Under The Red Flag”
1997: Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for “Ocean Of Words”
1999: National Book Award for “Waiting”
2000: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for “Waiting”
2001: Pushcart Prize XXVI for “An Official
Reply” (from The Bridegroom) (from Under The Red Flag)
2002: Townsend Prize For Fiction for “The Bridegroom”
2005: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for “War Trash”
2012: Dayton Literary Peace Prize for “Nanjing Requiem” (Fiction runner-up)
2019: PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for “A Distant Center”
The Best American Short Stories
“The Best American Short Stories” yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt since 1915.
Four of the twelve short stories from “The Bridegroom” have been selected for inclusion in four volumes of “The Best American Short Stories“.
“Saboteur” in The Best American Short Stories (1997)
Click on this: Link
“In The Kindergarten” in The Best American Short Stories (1999)
Click on this: Link
“The Bridegroom” in The Best American Short Stories (2000)
Click on this: Link
“After Cowboy Chicken Came To Town” in The Best American Short Stories (2001)
Click on this: Link
READ ALSO: Check out the big collection of “The Best American Short Stories” anthology.
The Best American Short Stories 1983
Click on this: Link
The Best American Short Stories 2013
Click on this: Link
The Best American Short Stories Of The Century
Click on this: Link
Misty Poetry Movement
Ha Jin’s poetry is associated with the controversial movement Ménglóng Shi Rén, or “Misty Poets“.
It was formed by a group of young poets who had experienced suffering and disillusionment during the Cultural Revolution.
Their protest poems are symbolically subtle, thematically iconoclastic and polysemous (a word or phrase has several meanings).
You can check out some of these poems in “Out Of The Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry“.
Here are two more books you should check them out.
A Splintered Mirror: Chinese Poetry From The Democracy Movement Translated By Donald Finkel
Click on this: Link
Smoking People: Encountering The New Chinese Poetry
Click on this: Link
Ha Jin Books Free Online
These are the nineteen (19) free e-books of Ha Jin you can read and/or download free online in PDF, ePUB or MOBI format .
As I have mentioned above, some of these free books can be read online directly, without having to download.
Here is the complete collection of Ha Jin Books to read online or free download in ePUB, PDF, MOBI.
Ha Jin Novels
In The Pond: A Novel
Click on this: Link
NOTE: Find out how to save Internet Archive borrow books: 1 Hour And 14 Days for your own personal collection.
Waiting
Click on this: Link
The Crazed
Click on this: Link
War Trash
Click on this: Link
A Free Life
Click on this: Link
Nanjing Requiem
Click on this: Link
A Map Of Betrayal
Click on this: Link
The Boat Rocker
Click on this: Link
Ocean Of Words: Stories
Click on this: Link
Under The Red Flag
Click on this: Link
The Bridegroom
Click on this: Link
A Good Fall
Click on this: Link
Ha Jin Short Story
Saboteur (first published in The Antioch Review in 1996)
Click on any of these: Link 1, Link 2
Ha Jin Poems
Between Silences: A Voice From China
Click on this: Link
Facing Shadows
Click on this: Link
Wreckage
Click on this: Link
A Distant Center
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Ha Jin Essays
The Writer As Migrant
Click on any of these: Link
Ha Jin Non-Fiction
The Banished Immortal: A Life Of Li Bai
Click on any of these: Link 1, Link 2
*Most of the books are from the Internet Archive.
DISCLAIMER: I do not publish or host the books or the movie on this site. They are copyrighted to their respective owners. All content cited is derived from their respective sources.