n a trip that's put him the closest to his homeland in 23 years, Chinese-American author Ha Jin says he wants to visit China but expressed frustration with censorship of his books.
The 52-year-old National Book Award winner told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday at the Hong Kong Book Fair that if if he has the chance, he would like to see his homeland again.
"I'd like to. I want to at least go back to take a look," he said.
Ha Jin, whose real name is Jin Xuefei, went to the United States in 1985 to pursue a doctorate in English and decided not to return after the Chinese military's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. He became a U.S. citizen in 1997.
Jin visited Taiwan in 2001 and this is his first trip to Hong Kong, but he hasn't visited the mainland since moving to the U.S.
Jin, who teaches English at Boston University, said Saturday he's interested in visiting China but is discouraged by the difficulty of publishing Chinese translations of his English books in the mainland. He said he also applied to become a visiting professor at the elite Peking University in Beijing in 2004 but never heard back.
Meanwhile, although his 1999 book "Waiting" was published in China in 2002, Jin said a Shanghai publisher's failed plan to publish five of his other books left him disillusioned.
He said the publisher wanted to publish "Under the Red Flag," ''The Bridegroom" ''Ocean of Words," ''In the Pond" and a collection of his poetry but abandoned the plan after "Under the Red Flag," a collection of short stories set in China, failed to pass censorship.
Jin said the publisher wasn't even willing to consider publishing two other works: "War Trash," about a Chinese soldier captured by Americans in the Korean War, and "The Crazed" about a Chinese university student who takes care of a professor with a brain injury during the Tiananmen Square protests.
"I thought about going back in 2004, then the books ran into this situation, so I wasn't in the mood to go back any more," he said.
Jin also said he doubts his latest book "A Free Life" can be published in China. "A Free Life," which mirrors Jin's personal life, is about a Chinese graduate student who stays in the U.S. after the Tiananmen Square crackdown and starts to write English poetry.
"It's impossible in the short run. They won't be able to accept the spirit of the book," he said.
"Waiting" won the National Book Award in 1998 and "War Trash" was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004 and winner of the PEN/Faulkner award.
Jin said he felt great uncertainty when he first started writing in English. "You're not sure how far you can go. Deep down you understand that you could fail. You could become a total mess," he said.
Jin said he has rejected an offer from Chinese-American director Wayne Wang to adapt "A Free Life" into a movie but appreciates the filmmaker's enthusiasm.
"If I work on it, I would have to put two years into it. I don't have the time," he said.
07/26/2008 05:21 AM
By MIN LEE
Associated Press Writer
HONG KONG
n a trip that's put him the closest to his homeland in 23 years, Chinese-American author Ha Jin says he wants to visit China but expressed frustration with censorship of his books.
