Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and came to the United States in 1985 to do graduate work at Brandeis University. In 1990 he began to write in English. To date, he has published three volumes of poetry: Between Silences (University of Chicago Press, 1990), Facing Shadows (Hanging Loose Press, 1996), and Wreckage (Hanging Loose Press, 2001). He has also published three books of short fiction: Ocean of Words (Vintage, 1996), which received the PEN/Hemingway Award, Under the Red Flag (Zoland Books, 1997), which received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and The Bridegroom (Vintage, 2000), which received The Asian American Literary Award and the Townsend Fiction Prize. He has also written five novels: In the Pond (Zoland Books, 1998); Waiting (Vintage, 1999), which received the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Crazed (Vintage, 2002), War Trash (Vintage, 2004), which received the PEN/Faulkner Award, and A Free Life (Pantheon, 2007). His new book The Writer as Migrant is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. He is currently working on a collection of stories, all set in Flushing, New York. He work has been translated into more than thirty languages.