Photo: slowking4 / GFDL 1.2 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Ha Jin is the kind of writer I admire without reservation. Leaving China and choosing to write in English, then winning the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner not once but twice, reflects a discipline that genuinely humbles me. Picking the pen name 'Ha' from Harbin, the city he loved, tells you he's a man attached to place and memory. Few things are harder than earning literary honors in a second language, and his roots in the Misty Poetry movement suggest a real obsession with the texture of words. I prefer quiet, weighty work to spectacle, and he delivers exactly that.
Overview
Jin Xuefei (simplified Chinese: 金雪飞; traditional Chinese: 金雪飛; pinyin: Jīn Xuěfēi; born February 21, 1956) is a Chinese American poet and novelist who uses the pen name Ha Jin (哈金). The name Ha comes from his favorite city, Harbin. His poetry is associated with the Misty Poetry movement.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Ha Jin
- Name (Japanese)
- ハ・ジン
- Reading
- は・じん
- Born
- February 21, 1956 (age 70)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Pisces / Monkey
- Origin
- Jinzhou, People's Republic of China
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- poet / short story writer / novelist / university teacher / writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Heilongjiang University
Awards & achievements
- 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1999 National Book Award
- 2005 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
- 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
- 1997 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- 2001 Asian American Literary Awards
- 2008 Berlin Prize
- 2008 Great Immigrants Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8F%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B8%E3%83%B3
Poet — see all → · More people from People's Republic of China →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.