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The Bridegroom
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407020297
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 240

The Bridegroom

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Sept 2010
Paperback
5 Oct 2001
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The Bridegroom explores the lives of ordinary Chinese as their constricted society begins to open up to the West, from the author of Waiting, confirming Ha Jin's reputation as a master storyteller.

This new collection of short stories by the award-winning author of Waiting confirms Ha Jin's reputation as a master storyteller, as well as a master of the miniature.

In The Bridegroom, the twelve stories capture a China in transition, moving from Maoism towards a more open society. For these men and women, starting to feel the influence of the West, the daily dramas of a system that still struggles to control their every move and thought are made all the more painful. As his characters, from an entrepreneur, transformed from black-market criminal to free market hero, to the workers at Cowboy Chicken, to the professor mistaken by the police for a saboteur, continue to struggle against petty injustices and heartbreaks, Ha Jin celebrates their lives and humanity with the understated humour and simplicity that has won him widespread acclaim.
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407020297
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 240
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About the author

Ha Jin

Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.
portrait photo of Ha Jin

Also by Ha Jin

The Boat Rocker
Looking for Tank Man
The Woman Back from Moscow: In Pursuit of Beauty
A Song Everlasting
The Banished Immortal
The Boat Rocker - A Novel
A Map of Betrayal
See all

Praise for The Bridegroom

Ha Jin has the kind of effortless command that most writers can only dream about

New York Times Magazine

Ha Jin's eye for detail, his great storytelling talent, suffuse his work and make The Bridegroom a genuine pleasure

New York Times Book Review

Beautifully understated short stories-Some of them are likely to break your heart

People Magazine

A genuine pleasure

New York Times Book Review

The Bridegroom...showcases [Ha Jin's] mastery of craft, the consummate restraint and nearly telegraphic objectivity with which he paints difficult truths

Boston Globe