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Waiting

by Ha Jin

ISBN: 0375706410
ISBN-13: 9780375706417
Format: Paperback

Summary

This multi-award-winning novel about a romance between Dr. Lin Kong, an unhappily married Chinese physician, and Manna Wu, the nurse he falls in love with, is a chronicle of Kong's attempt to get a divorce from his wife over the course of 17 years. The victim of an arranged marriage, Kong longs for an end-but each time they go to court, his very traditional wife, at the last minute, refuses. Kong is hoping to profit from a Chinese law that permits an automatic divorce after 18 years of separation-and his long, patient devotion and endless frustration can be seen as an allegory of life in a repressive society. In addition to being a passionate love story, WAITING is also an insightful and fascinating look at contemporary provincial China.

Customer Reviews

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Media Reviews

"Fluidly written, the novel is strangely inert in the beginning as it focuses on Lin and Manna's inaction and inability to move forward with their romance. But the pace picks up in the book's final third, as Lin's waiting comes to an end and he navigates the aftermath of his divorce."    -- Pui-Wing Tam

   -- Wall Street Journal

"Jin...has drawn a portrait of Chinese provincial life that terrifies with its emptiness even more than with its all-pervasive vulgarity. The poet in him intersperses these human scenes with achingly beautiful vignettes of natural beauty....Nothing, Jin is saying, has really changed between new and old China: It's just gotten nastier and, well, yes, more materialistic."    -- Peter Green

   -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Jin's prose is limpid and straightforward, unadorned by any stylistic embellishment beyond the occasional simile....Although simple in outline, the conflict at the heart of Jin's novel quickly takes on an obdurate complexity....WAITING is more poignant, the first work of Jin's to elicit a wide range of responses from the reader rather than simple horror or rueful amusement. More subtle and complex than his earlier fiction, it is his best work to date, a moving meditation on the effects of time upon love."    -- Gregory Feeley

   -- Washington Post Book World

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Vintage Books
Published date: 2000
Size: 5.15 x 8 inches
Weight: 0.55 pounds
Pages: 308

Publisher's Notes

An ambitious and dedicated Chinese doctor, Lin Kong finds himself torn between two very different women--the educated and dynamic nurse with whom he has fallen in love and the traditional, meek, and humble woman to whom his family married him when they were both very young. National Book Award & Pen/Faulkner Award Winner.

Other Editions

Hardcover - Random House Inc (1999) - from $1.00
Paperback - Random House Inc (2000) - from $1.00

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Waiting: A Novel

Ha Jin

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