Available Formats
Waiting
By (Author) Ha Jin
Everyman
Everyman's Library
2nd September 2025
15th August 2024
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Romance
813.6
Hardback
328
Width 134mm, Height 212mm, Spine 26mm
468g
A 25th anniversary hardcover edition of the award-winning, bestselling novel about a man living in two worlds and struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women The demands of human longing contend with the weight of centuries of custom in acclaimed author Ha Jin's Waiting, a novel of unexpected richness and universal resonance. Every summer Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army, returns to his village to end his loveless arranged marriage with the humble and touchingly loyal Shuyu. Each time, Lin must return to the city to tell Manna Wu, the educated, modern nurse he loves, that they will have to postpone their engagement once again. Caught between the conflicting claims of these two very different women and trapped by a culture in which adultery can ruin lives and careers, Lin has been waiting for eighteen years. This year, he promises will be different
HA JIN left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of eight novels, four story collections, four three volumes of poetry, a biography of Li Bai, and a book of essays. He has received the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in the Boston area and is a professor at the creative writing program at Boston University.