An Evening with Ha Jin: Writer as Immigrant

On Thursday, February 19, 2009, National Book Award-winner Ha Jin (Waiting) was in town, so I went to hear him speak. For a second-tier town, St. Louis has a strong rotation of literary and bestselling authors visit, with the excellent St. Louis County Library often providing shelter for these readings. There were 80ish people there, more Chinese than normal (not surprisingly), and the hard covers of his latest, A Free Life, sold out, while possible purchasers sneered at the paperbacks.

Jin immigrated to the United States from China and is a writing professor in Boston University’s well-regard creative writing program. Now in his 50s, his hair is graying, his accent is noticeable, but understandable, he laughs nervously throughout the evening, and, instead of pointing at questioners during the Q&A, he jabs the air toward their upraised hands. His topic of discussion was writing as an immigrant, which naturally led to many other thoughts on writing worth sharing.

Some Highlights

• The sooner an author can “hold a book in your mind,” the sooner it will be completed. It’s “basically a requirement. It really takes capacity to hold a novel in your mind.” Imagine doing that with War and Peace, he laughed. It’s this capacity that makes the novel a major art form.

• For A Free Life, he used European writing models as examples to follow, citing Anna Karenina, Fathers and Sons, and Madame Bovary. He didn’t use Chinese models because in China, “The poetry is stronger than (prose) literature.”

• He said there a small body of US novels helped, especially with the descriptions of landscapes (naming Willa Cather’s My Antonia, and O Pioneers! “When I arrived (in the U.S.), what struck me most was the American landscape,” he said, mentioning how people were feeding the ducks at a lake, not chasing them (to eat). Someone caught a big fish, and returned it to the water. Jin asked, “Can’t you eat it?” He added that he wrote to Chinese friends at home that, “Nature has been very generous to Americans,” while Chinese land is exhausted after generations of people using it.

• He also noted that early Asian-Americans didn’t write about landscape because they weren’t allowed to own land.

• He touched on other immigrant writers like Nabokov, who he said was discouraged by the great critic Edmund Wilson from punning. If I understood Jin correctly, he said this was because “jokes break rules” and foreigners are not allowed to do this. Natives can break the rules.

For Writers
• Writers should “find a body of great books to nourish you” as a “spiritual force.”

• The most talented don’t get published, the stubborn, persistent do.

• Among his favorite books are Anna Karenina, Chekov’s late stories, and Absalom! Absalom! Almost as an aside, he shared, Faulkner stands alone in modern literature. “Faulkner is a monument. You love him, but you can’t learn from him. You love him, but you can’t get close to him.”

• Writers must be in shape linguistically, which is why it’s so difficult to master two writing languages.

• All of his previous books were set in China, and he said, “I have to beware the English ear” so that English idioms and nuances are not portrayed by Chinese natives.

• Because it takes years to complete, you “can’t let (a novel) get cold. It’s like cooking.” Work on it every day, “even if it’s just 20 minutes.”

• He encourages young writers to write a book to become a movie because it often keeps them going.

Author Readings
I will go so far as to offend some of you by saying, if you are a writer, or want to be, and don’t attend local readings, you are not a writer. Readings give you intimate time with (often) world-class authors, usually for free. Where else are you going to get that type of experience? Plus, there’s so much to chew on afterwards, including writing tips, and—perhaps most importantly—it keeps your creative fire burning.

Most universities host them, chain superstores host them, libraries host them, cool indy bookstores host them. All you have to do is get in on their e-newsletter lists and you’re set. Don’t miss out on these great opportunities to improve your writing.