Ha Jin

Ha Jin (Xuefei Jin) is a Chinese-American author and professor specializing in English and creative writing within the field of Literature. Born in 1956 in Liaoning Province, China, he served in the People's Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution before pursuing higher education. He received his B.A. in English from Heilongjiang University in 1982, M.A. in American Literature from Shandong University in 1984, and M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1993) in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. Jin joined Emory University in 1993 as Assistant Professor in the English Department, advancing to Associate Professor in 1998 and Young J. Allen Professor of English and Creative Writing in 2000, positions he held until 2001. He has since been Professor of English at Boston University, elevated to William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in 2019, and served as Director of the Creative Writing Program from 2016 to 2018.

Renowned for his fiction, poetry, and essays exploring Chinese history, military life, immigration, and human conditions under authoritarianism, Ha Jin has published nine novels, including Waiting (Pantheon, 1999; National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award), War Trash (Pantheon, 2004; PEN/Faulkner Award), The Crazed (2002), A Free Life (2007), Nanjing Requiem (2011), A Map of Betrayal (2014), The Boat Rocker (2016), and A Song Everlasting (2021). His four short story collections feature Ocean of Words (Zoland, 1996; PEN/Hemingway Award), Under the Red Flag (Georgia, 1997; Flannery O’Connor Award), The Bridegroom (2000), and A Good Fall (2009). Poetry volumes include Between Silences (Chicago, 1990), Facing Shadows (1996), Wreckage (2001), and A Distant Center (Copper Canyon, 2019; PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award). Additionally, he authored The Writer as Migrant (essays, Chicago, 2008) and The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai (Pantheon, 2019). His works have been translated into over thirty languages, earning fellowships such as Guggenheim (1999) and Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest (2000–2002), and elections to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and American Academy of Arts and Letters (2014), underscoring his profound impact on contemporary Literature.

Professional Email: xjin@bu.edu