Ha Jin was born in 1956 in China, lived through Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward”, spent his teenage years in the People’s Liberation Army, and earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Studies and a Master’s degree in Anglo-American Literature.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China happened while he was on scholarship at Brandeis University in the United States and led to his decision to make America his home. Despite being openly critical of the Chinese Government he refutes claims that he is a dissident, though most of his books are banned in China. Among his many awards are America’s National Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award twice. He currently directs Boston University’s creative writing programme.
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