Expatriot author Ha Jin to discuss

Expatriot author Ha Jin to discuss ‘The Writer as a Migrant’ Oct. 24-26

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

Award-winning writer Ha Jin, author of “Waiting” and “War Trash,” will present three original lectures on the theme “The Writer as a Migrant” at Rice University’s second annual Campbell Lecture Series Oct. 24-26.

An expatriate of China who writes about his homeland, Jin is uniquely qualified for this topic. His three lectures, titled “The Spokesman and the Tribe,” “Language of Betrayal” and “An Individual’s Homeland,” will be presented at 7:30 each evening in Hamman Hall. The lectures are free and open to the public.

The three lectures are intended to examine the metaphysical dimensions of the writer as a migrant. In the first lecture, Jin will examine how writers who live away from their native lands are affected by the longing and the preparation for “return,” how it can shape a writer’s vision and thus the nature of his work.

JIN

His second lecture will look at the liabilities and the opportunities facing writers who journey from one language into another. He will explore not only some of the ethical implications in adopting another language, but also the limitations, boundaries and possibilities in writing in a language in which the writer cannot possibly be at home. In his third lecture, Jin will focus on “arrival,” finding a space where a writer can do his work and feel somewhat at peace.

Born in China in 1956, Xuefei Jin — Ha Jin is his pen name — was a teenager when China entered the Cultural Revolution. At 14, he lied about his age to get into the People’s Liberation Army, where he served for almost six years. After his service, Jin worked as a railroad telegrapher and taught himself English by listening to the radio. Jin eventually earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chinese universities. In the mid-1980s, Jin came to the United States to earn a Ph.D. from Brandeis University, planning to return to China to teach. But those plans changed in 1989 when he witnessed on television the Chinese government’s massacre of young students in Tiananmen Square. He decided he could never go back.

As Jin settled into his immigrant life in America, he eked out a living as a waiter, a busboy and a night watchman, while continuing to pursue his writing.

In 1990, he published his first book of poetry, “Between Silences.” He published another poetry collection, “Facing Shadows,” in 1996 and his first collection of stories, “Ocean of Words,” which earned him the PEN/Hemingway Award, the first of many literary honors.

His second collection of stories, “Under the Red Flag,” won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His 1999 novel, “Waiting,” based on his experiences in the Red Army, won the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award. His novel “War Trash” won him a rare second PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Other novels by Jin include “In the Pond,” “The Crazed” and “The Bridegroom,” and many of his short stories have appeared in “The Best American Short Stories” anthologies.

Currently, Jin is a professor at Boston University, teaching in the Creative Writing Program and English department.

The Campbell lectures are a series of annual lectures that present original ideas on topics of interest in literature. Established with a
$1 million contribution from Rice alumnus T.C. Campbell ’34, the lecture series is set to run for 20 years and was inaugurated last year with former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky’s talks on “The American Town: Dreams and Nightmares.”
A community advisory committee, designed to reflect the appropriate combination of
scholarly and broadly intellectual interests, includes Karl Kilian, director of programs
at the Menil Collection; Rich Levy, executive director of Inprint Inc., which supports literary readings and supports creative writers;
James Gibbons, opinion-page editor of the Houston Chronicle; Edward Hirsch, president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and former faculty member
at the University of Houston; Robert Patten,
the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Humanities
at Rice and editor of Studies in English
Literature, a flagship journal of literary scholarship; and Alan Thomas, editorial director for the humanities and sciences at the University of Chicago Press. The committee is chaired by Gary Wihl, dean of the School of Humanities.

For more information about the Campbell Series, visit <www.rice.edu/campbelllecture> or call 713-348-4998.