Random Assortment of Various Links

Need gift ideas for the manga fan in your life? ComicWorldNews.com has a nice list, complete with small reviews. (Thanks to ComicsReporter.com for the tip.)

First week sales totals are in on Amazon.com's Kindle e-book. Although the headlines were many, the sales were few. To cover for their failure, Amazon.com has their lackeys in the press already beating the drum for the version 2.0.

Whoever said comics are dead needs to look at the sales numbers for DC/Vertigo's Y: The Last Man. The trade paperback releases of this title just get more and more popular. First month sales of book two increased a whopping 66% over book one! This news is all the more encouraging considering that Y is actually a damn good read. Check out these reviews.

The 9 most badass bible verses, brought to you by Cracked Magazine. The selections are both apt and hilarious. The accompanying illustrations are just icing on the unleavened bread. (Thanks to BoingBoing for the tip.)

Gift Tips for the Bookish

Jimbo Vinyl Figure

Gary Panter, one of the late 70's/early 80's greatest punk rock cartoonists (as well as the set designer for Pee-Wee's Playhouse!), has just released "the first officially licensed" figure of his most famous creation, Jimbo. The loinclothed figure is limited to 750 pieces and comes with a 32 page book chronicling the character's various comics appearances thus far. Price: $49.99. Available: here.




Mighty Bright Book Light: Triple LED Deluxe Book Light Kit

This is the book light of choice for most of our staff. If you've ever seen the dark, raccoon-like circles around our eyes, you know it works. It has a telescopic arm, maneuverable head, and AC adapter, not to mention a cool, cyber-snake look. Price: $26.99. Available: In our store.

Book News, In Brief

Norman Mailer wins the 'Bad Sex' award for his fictitious portrayal of the incestuous conception of Adolf Hitler. Do we applaud this victory, or yell out, "Too soon!"? Runners-up for this much lauded prize included the book, Will, by Christopher Rush (wherein the author offers a firsthand account of the dirty deed as performed by William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway) and The Stone Gods, by Jeannette Winterson (whose woman-on-robot sex scene is said to have lacked both spark and pulse).

Via AP: Over 100 authors (including John Updike, Anne Tyler and Walter Isaacson) participated in a 'year's best releases' poll initiated by the nation's book critics. Authors and critics were asked to choose five different works in three different categories: fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The winners were novelist Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying and, in a three-way tie for poetry, Robert Hass' Time and Materials, the late Zbigniew Herbert's Collected Poems and Robert Pinsky's Gulf Music. In a remarkable moment of complete obviousness mixed with confusing rhetoric, John Freeman, president of the National Book Critics Circle, told The Associated Press, "Best-seller lists really only show people what's selling, not what people are reading." Um, that makes zero sense, John.

Book News, In Brief

Imitating the popular Rough Guide cell phone service in Britain, Fodor's Travel Books plans to provide a similar service for Americans. United States of Americans. You Canucks are on your own. To sign up for the service, visit AskMeNow.com.

Short-sighted publishers damn Chinese readers to some of the worst book translations on Earth. Or as our translator in Shanghai tells it, 'Near-sighted pubblers goddamn Chinese red rears to sum of those worse bok transformations in Erf.'

How-to tell if your friendly neighborhood bookstore blogger is desperate for links and news items: They recommend an article like, How-To Pick How-To Books. The internet needs a Bill W. for those of us who realize we've hit rock bottom.

Face: 3, Body: 3, Brains: 5

(Or: Kindle, the Jan Brady of E-Books)
Yesterday's Yahoo and Amazon home pages featured press releases disguised as news articles announcing the "long anticipated" (their wording, of course) arrival of the Kindle reader, an Amazon-exclusive e-book priced at an easily affordable $399. The Kindle is the newest, and by far the most heavily hyped, of the many handheld electronic libraries trying to work their way into the hearts and backpacks of ipod users everywhere.
Like it or not, paper & ink purists, it's only a matter of time before one of these things finally takes off, relegating what few of your favorite indie bookstores still remain to that prime real estate spot down Memory Lane. More specifically, it's only a matter of time before someone finally designs an e-book that actually makes carrying an e-book look sexy. And then it's over. After all, a chic shape was the ultimate turning point for the Apple's ipod, after years of lackluster mp3 player launches from nearly every other major electronics company in the world.
Lucky for us bookstores, then, that the Kindle is anything but sexy. Looking like a 1980's Speak N' Spell, this device inspires neither oohs nor ahhs. In fact, with only a black and white display, the average passerby will probably think you're sporting an out of date Blackberry instead of Amazon.com's anemic attempt at creating this year's Tickle Me Elmo. But who knows, maybe you're deeper than me, and don't like to judge an e-book by its cover. Well, how do you feel about that wireless contract with Sprint that you're damned to enter into? Or the fact that you're being forced to buy your books from just one source? Why, from 1983-1989, I sold countless pairs of acid-washed Levis in Leningrad Square to escape such treatment! And now it has followed me here, like the comic stylings of Yakov Smirnoff and the protruding bulge of Mikhail Baryshnikov?! For shame, America.
Don't get me wrong. I accept the fact that someday -- someday soon -- the e-book will take hold of the public consciousness like the DVD and the mp3 and the Hello Kitty Personal Massager. I just don't think that the Kindle is the e-book that will inspire such consumer lust.

Book News, In Brief

The National Endowment for the Arts hates our soldiers! Isn't that what it really means when they say something like, the average American reads less than one book a year, and that the country is testing dumber because of it? Let me state here -- publicly and unequivocally -- that although I, too, am well-endowed, I do not endorse the NEA's hurtful and hateful and clearly anti-American sentiments.

Judith Regan has launched a $100 million lawsuit against her former publisher, Rupert Murdoch, over the handling of her baby, the OJ Simpson book, If I Did It. And to think, only a week ago she was announcing her plans to stay out of the media spotlight.










Via BoingBoing: "The Book Design Review Blog has picked its top book covers for 2007!" Click here to check them out and cast your vote for the best of the best. (Pictured, from left to right, Unmarketable designed by Rob Carmichael, One Perfect Day designed by Evan Gaffney, and Fireproof designed by unknown.)

Book News, In Brief

The Wu-Tang Clan's most surreal member, Ghostface Killah, is set to release a book this January. The book, The World According to Pretty Toney, is billed as the "ultimate guide to life" for "the modern day hustler," and covers everything from "livin'and hustlin'" to "lovin' and eatin'." Sounds mmn, mmn good!

Marvel Comics has begun offering their comics online, at a price considerably less than retail. Over at ICv2, Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics Shop explains why it may lead to the death of comic book shops, and comic book/trade paperback sales in general. For those of you who might think that Strasser is overreacting, call your local record store and ask them how online sales have effected their business...if their phone is still connected.

Travis Smiley, the thought provoking media personality behind the highly successful -- and self-published -- The Covenant With Black America, is expanding his publishing company...in a big way. Smiley recently announced books by Cornell West and Iyanla Vanzant in the coming year, with plenty more to follow.


Bonus! Ghostface Video!

Book News, In Brief

Surprise, surprise! Anti-war, government-critiquing books win big at The National Book Awards. Does this mean that the notoriously right-wing art world is finally expanding their horizons? What's next -- gay-themed movies winning Academy Awards? Asian chefs winning Iron Chef competitions? The times they are a-stagnant.

It's tasteless and tacky and I'm actually a little miffed that someone else beat me to it: A recent poll finds Kurt Vonnegut to be America's Best Loved Recently Deceased Author. Apparently, most folks found (find?) Mailer's work lacking in "staying power." (Keep in mind, these are the same folks who respond to such random, idiotic queries as, "Who's your favorite dead author?")

Dave Roman, editor and illustrator over at Nickelodeon Magazine, offers up a slew of tips for aspiring freelance artists. Wannabe writers and basement bloggers should also take a look. Roman's tips regarding editors, effectively marketing yourself, finding local outlets for your work, creating a memorable business card, and online self-promotion can easily be applied to your fields, as well.
(A tip of the hat to Publisher's Weekly and The Beat for the initial head-up.)

In Defense of Third Person Omniscient

Yesterday, a customer asked me if I could find him some recent fiction written in the third person omniscient point of view. ('T.P.O.' as I'll refer to it from here on out, is when a story is told from the perspective of a god-like narrator who can see every character's actions and thoughts.) My initial reaction was, damn, what a stupid way to find something new to read. Then I set off around the store to find one. But you know what? I couldn't. Not one. It seems that the majority of the novels being published today fall into one of two p.o.v. camps: first person ("I did this," "I went there," etc.) and third person limited (a character's name is used instead of "I", but chapter to chapter, scene to scene, we get to 'hear' the thoughts and 'see' the observations of whichever character is being featured).
So what the hell happened to T.P.O? Looking around online, the majority of folks seem to deride it, calling it "head-hopping," or "lazy writing." Another common claim is that publishers frown on it because it "creates...distance between the reader and the story," while "making it hard to form any emotional attachments to the characters."
Well, I say mother-eff those folks. T.P.O. is the Robert Altman of fiction -- a unique and exciting way to experience the lives of a wide variety of characters, all at the same time. And to call it "lazy" is ludicrous. Switching back and forth between the p.o.v. of a group of characters in a manner that never confuses...that's anything but easy. Jane Austen used to use the T.P.O., and she's no slacker. J.R.R. Tolkien did, too, and he was a literature professor. Hell, even your mother and/or father used T.P.O. when they told you bedtime stories, and that supposed 'distancing' never stopped you from peeing the bed in terror, did it?
In closing, let me pass on this quote from Molly Maquire, herself quoting Stephen Koch. The two of them sum it up perfectly:

"Whenever arguments over the sanctity of certain POV protocols arises, I think of Koch's take on the furor:

'Too often, this rather fussy doctrine pointlessly constricts writers’ options and narrows their range. As for the claim that the reader can’t follow multiple or shifting points of view, it is simply false on its face. The whole history of the novel is testimony to the contrary, from Jane Austen to Thomas Pynchon. In masterpiece after masterpiece, the narrative point of view readily changes from page to page, or even from sentence to sentence and only delights as it does so. In fact, one of prose fiction’s grandest strengths, which it exercises for once in effortless superiority over all other narrative media, including the movies, is its ability to dart in and out of any character’s mind at will. To forgo this splendid artistic advantage in the name of some pallid academic theory is really madness.'
–Stephen Koch, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, page 90"

2 News Bits, 1 Photo

Australia is buzzing about a hot new book that features hundreds of candid photos of sex, jealousy and betrayal...under the sea.

Do the often lurid and embarrassing covers of fantasy books actually hurt their sales? When even their regular readers think so, it may be time for the industry to re-think its approach.

Book News, In Brief

I had no idea that the Miami Book Fair was such a big deal. It makes sense, though, considering the state's reputation as a retirement mecca. Those wealthy old folks do nothing but read and reminisce and find new ways to conceal their old racist ideologies. I kid, I kid...I love old people. My grandparents were old. So was Gandalf. Anyway, for a complete review of the MBF, video clips, and some Rosie O'Donnell gossip, head on over to the Miami Herald, MiamiTV 4, and the official website. Oh, and don't forget your reading glasses. None of these sites currently offer large print versions.

Andrew Morton, dirt-disher extraordinaire, is set to publish a new biography about every woman's dream Lamaze partner, Tom Cruise. According to Morton, the book offers so much dirt on Cruise's personal life, sexuality, religious beliefs, etc, that he has had to go into hiding for fear of losing his life. "I have received threats from the Scientologists, and things have become pretty heavy - to the extent that it's almost more than my lawyers can handle. I've sold my flat and I'm not telling anyone where I'm moving to. I intend to disappear for a while."
(Note to Morton's publishers: He told me to tell you to just go ahead and send his checks here, care of me. We all feel that for now, it's safer that way.)

Norman Mailer is dead at age 84. Listed below are are a slew of links to various tributes, obits and career summaries.
New Yorker Magazine
New York Times obituary
San Fran Chronicle
Publishers Weekly
Time Magazine
Mailer on The Charlie Rose Show
Recent interview with The UK Guardian

Book News, In Britain

According to recent across-the-pond polls, Harry Potter is the most re-read book (and/or series) in England. Less embarrassing is the fact that 77% of British readers revisit the books that they enjoyed the first time around. Some say that they go back to find things they might have missed the first time around, while others do so simply out of dissatisfaction with everything else coming out. (Editor's note: It's official -- new release whores are a world wide scourge.)

Via PublishingNewsUK: "Some five million mobile phone users are estimated to be using Rough Guides Mobile, the application which provides travel content through a navigable map interface, facilitating access to travel information to more than 200 cities in 33 countries. The feature is embedded on all Motorola handsets sold in Europe and is offered by Samsung through its Fun Club portal in the UK."
Needless to say, this is not helping our 'folks don't want to read books on their cell phone' argument.

The prize at the bottom of today's blog post is this photo of a handful of England's comics luminaries circa 1990. From left to right, Grant Morrison, Brendan McCarthy, Rian Hughes, Peter Hogan and Charles Shaar Murray. Pic stolen from Forbidden Planet.co.uk.

Book News, No Pics

Judith Regan (publisher of the OJ book, among other atrocities) claims she wants out of the spotlight. She announced this in an exclusive interview with Harper's Bazaar.

UK publisher Picador announced that they will henceforth be putting out their new titles in both hardcover and softcover simultaneously. They then ask this question of other publishers: "When are we going to accept that we live in an A and B (now mostly B) format country; that only a tiny handful of authors command enough reader loyalty to achieve viable hardback sales; that by concentrating promotional energy on a moribund format we are doing no favours to the format people actually want to buy?"

HarperCollins reports that they had a "lousy quarter," with sales falling 11.5%, to a paltry $330 million. I've got an idea that would raise their profits and help the struggling Arab publishing world at the same time. A merger of sorts. Well, okay, more like a government funded, hostile corporate takeover. HaliburtonCollins. I've even got their first three releases picked out for them: Bush's daughter's book, Cheney's wife's softcore pulp, and Everybody Poops (Taro Gomi is Bush's Maya Angelou).

Book News, In Brief

Rosie O'Donnell dropped two f-bombs on the Miami Book Fair, then went on to make this stellar observation: "I’ve never been to a book fair, so I didn’t know what to expect. I thought maybe there would be rides, cotton candy...Turns out it’s a bunch of smart people talking about books."
For those of you too cool to watch crappy daytime television, O'Donnell is the author of the recently published/critically lambasted memoir, Celebrity Detox, as well as the star of the film adaptation/abomination of Anne Rice's Exit To Eden.

After all the fuss, it turns out that only 1,700 people requested a refund on their copies of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. If 1,700 seems like a rather large number to you, keep in mind that millions of copies were originally sold -- along with another 100,000 being purchased after the 'fabrications' were revealed.

Faris al-Saqqaf, head of the General Authority for Books (possibly one of the coolest job titles in existence, no?) says that 'the shortage of reading, and subsequently the shortage of publishing, is damaging the Middle East’s development.' He has called upon the governments in Arab countries to help support and further their book industries by decreasing the cost of customs on materials used for book production, and is asking for tax exemptions for publishing houses. (He is also pushing for e-books for schoolchildren, but hey, nobody's perfect.)

Paul Norris Sleeps With The Fishes

Norris, co-creator of Aquaman, died today at age 93. For a fitting, informative tribute, click on over to Mark Evanier's site.

Oprah Poses An Interesting Question (...just not on her show...or on purpose)

This afternoon, Oprah's website removed a children's book recommendation because the author was a racist. A really big racist. The Education of Little Tree, first published in 1976, is the work of Ku Klux Klansman and George Wallace-speech writer, Forrest Carter (he's the guy that originally came up with Wallace's infamous vow: "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"). Oprah's decision to remove Little Tree from her "picks" raises an interesting moral dilemma. If the book itself is not spewing hateful, hurtful bile -- and is in fact a moving tale with a loving depiction of Native Americans -- is it wrong for readers (and booksellers) to try and separate the art from the artist?

What do you folks think? Have you ever loved the work of someone you found personally reprehensible?

Link: Fox News (Who, coincidentally, I find to be morally reprehensible!)

For more on the book, its author and their strange back story, visit NativeWeb.org

Book News, In Brief

Via MTV.com: What's beef? His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman disses fellow fantasy geeks C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I was going to make a very punny joke about Pullman's masturbatory self-praise and the dirty deed that is his last name, but in the spirit of fair play, I'm going to wait until he's been dead over thirty years to do so.

Via Japanese Review: Kodansha Limited, the largest publishing company in Japan and owner of several of the nation’s most popular manga magazines, will release exclusive manga content viewable on the internet for free starting Wednesday. But have no fear, countless bootleg manga websites featuring entire series scanned and uploaded for free and illegal online perusal. You're still needed. Kodansha's only giving away eight measly titles.

Via AFP: J.K. Rowling has completed her first book since the Potter finale -- and it's another Potter book! The up side: It's not another Scooby Doo-esque mystery whose villain is inevitably the new dark arts teacher ('And I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling wizards!'), but a collection of stories that "comes from that world." (Editor's note: The vagaries are all Rowling's.) The down side: There are only seven copies being made; six going to folks involved with the original Potter books, and the seventh to be auctioned off for more than anyone with the free time to read this blog will ever be able to afford. Oh, and Rowling provides all of the illustrations herself, but like I said, you're too poor to concern yourself with it anyways. (Editor's note: How much do you wanna bet that this thing gets published before 2010?)

Expect A Slew Of Self-Congratulatory Norma Ray Rip-Offs, Re-Makes and Unofficial Sequels In 2009

With Hollywood biting their nails over a possible writer's strike, should the literary world be expecting a windfall of oddly formatted, dialog-heavy submissions? Speaking for myself, I can only dreeeaaam of what a book by the writers of LOST would be like. Or a novel by Alan Thicke. Or a cookbook by the geniuses behind Desperate Housewives. On second thought, Hollywood...please don't strike.

Book News, In Brief

It's not just the kid that's missing -- tact and good taste have also been mysteriously abducted! Via The Telegraph.UK: "The first book on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is set to be published next week by one of Portugal’s best known crime reporters." Wowzers. First the OJ book and now this. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Rapper/producer/comedic actor Kanye West adds another adjective to his resume with the January 2008 release of Thank You and You're Welcome, a book (co-authored by J. Sakiya Sandifer) that he promises will feature "his personal message uncensored, without any five-second delay or media distortion."

Via Publisher's Weekly: Does it have to be e-books vs. paper & ink, or can the two live like Ebony & Ivory ('in perfect harmony')?

Related...


SNL Frank & Stevie - Ebony & Ivory - Watch the best video clips here

Because I'm Lazy...

Today's news is brought to you by the The Comics Reporter, and their post Five Positive Stories About Comics. Go, read.
(Tomorrow, I'll do better.)

Book News, In Brief

A second(?!) sequel to Gone With The Wind is set to go on sale this week, this time from Rhett's perspective. Frankly, folks, no one gives a damn.

Here's a new definition of irony for Wikipedia: Britney Spears' mom, Lynne Spears, is planning to write a book on parenting. The punchlines write themselves in situations such as these.

Cuz today's kids can't get enough of yesterday's old people, HarperCollins is set to release eight Agatha Christie novels...as comic books! Does this mean that some video game company is out there frantically working on a Murder, She Wrote rpg? I sure hope so.

Via GuardianUK: "In Iran, the trend of opening coffee shops inside bookstores has fallen foul of the authorities amid a general clampdown on social and intellectual freedoms...(The government justifies) the closures by declaring that the coffee shops constituted an illegal 'mixing of trades'. However, critics suspect the move is aimed at restricting the gathering of intellectuals and educated young people."
While that's truly appalling, the glass-is-half-full/veil-is-half-off optimist in me can't help but look at the bright side -- customers will no longer have to buy books stained by sticky buns. (We Americans have given up greater freedoms for less, no?)

Book News, In Brief

Renaissance comedian Steve Martin is set to warp the minds of li'l jerks everywhere with his upcoming children's book, The Alphabet From A to Y, With Bonus Letter Z. Hopefully, this book resembles Martin's 2001 novella, Shop Girl, more than it does his recent children's movies. They all sucked.

Southern Californian booksellers are either eager to defy all of the slacker/beach bum stereotypes normally associated with their peeps, or they're just plain suicidal. Via Publisher's Weekly: SoCal Publishers and Booksellers Work as Fires Abate. Hell, I took a week off during Hurricane Katrina -- and The Inkwell's located in Massachusetts!

A signed, first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold in London for $40,000 (US). I'm assuming that this purchase was made as an investment, because what person able to drop $40K on a book would be such a remedial reader that they'd claim Potter be their favorite book? Oh, wait, I know.

Book News, In Brief

Via BoingBoing.net: Possibly the worst cookbook title ever. Disney's kidding, right? I mean, they 'd have to be...right?

The Rowling credo: If at first you do succeed -- beyond even you and your publisher's wildest dreams -- try and try again.

MySpace has long inspired/housed reams of bad writing. Now they're teaming with publisher HarperCollins to release a book -- featuring none of it. Sorry, all you LonelyGrrl6969s of the world wide web. You're still just a bunch of unrecognized, unpublished nobodies. (Our tip? Blog about it!)

Wired Does Manga

The newest issue of Wired Magazine (and their accompanying website) has dedicated quite a bit of space this month to manga (or, Japanese comics). As a primer for the uninitiated, there's a colorful, comics f.a.q. describing the global phenomenon, and another, longer comic mapping manga's slow-building popularity boom here in the United States. For the more experienced manga reader (those of you who know enough to read your manga trades starting at the back page, right side), there's a fascinating article on the way that dojinshi (or, unlicensed and self-published fan adaptations) has evolved into a multi-million dollar a year business...and one that the corporate copyright holders are allowing to exist! Apparently, the Japanese comics corporations are willing to turn a blind eye to the dojinshi scene, understanding that it serves as a sort of training school for many of the artists and writers that they will one day be employing. The comics companies also seem to feel that the fan-fic "does not diminish the sales of the original product, but may increase them."
Hmn...do you think that J.K. Rowling and Scholastic would take such an enlightened and understanding view if the reams of Harry-humps-Ron stories currently floating around the internet started being published via print-on-demand?

(thanks to BoingBoing.net for the initial heads-up!)

Author Du Jour: Ha Jin

Biography
(courtesy of bookreporter.com)

Born in mainland China, Ha Jin grew up in a small rural town in Liaoning Province. From the age of fourteen to nineteen he volunteered to serve in the People's Liberation Army, staying at the northeastern border between China and the former Soviet Union. He began teaching himself the middle-and high-school courses since his third year in the army, which he left in the sixth year because he wanted to go to college. But colleges remained closed during the Cultural Revolution, which continued when he was demobilized, so he worked as a telegrapher at a railroad company for three years in Jiamusi, a remote frontier city in the Northeast. During this time, he began to follow the English learner's program, hoping that someday he could read Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 in the English original.

In 1977 colleges reopened, and he passed the entrance exams and went to Heilongjiang University in Harbin where he was assigned to study English, even though this was his last choice for a major! He received a B.A. in English in 1981. He then studied American literature at Shandong University, where he received an M.A. in 1984. The following year he came to the United States to do graduate work at Brandeis University, from which he earned a Ph.D. in English in 1993. In the meantime, he studied fiction writing at Boston University with the novelists Leslie Epstein and Aharon Appelfeld.

After the Tianeman massacre, he realized it would be impossible to write honestly in China, so he decided to emigrate. Unlike most exiled writers already established in their native language, Ha Jin had no audience in Chinese, and so chose to write in English. To him, this meant much labor, some despair, and also, freedom.

Currently he is an associate professor in English at Emory University. He has published two volumes of poetry, BETWEEN SILENCES (University of Chicago Press, 1990), and FACING SHADOWS (Hanging Loose Press, 1996), and two books of short fiction, OCEAN OF WORDS (Zoland Books, 1996) which received the PEN Hemingway Award, and UNDER THE RED FLAG (University of Georgia Press, 1997), which received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and was a finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Award. He also published a novella, IN THE POND (Zoland Books, 1998), which was selected as a best fiction book of 1998 by the Chicago Tribune. His short stores have been included in The Best American Short Stories (1997 and 1999), three Pushcart Prize anthologies, and Norton Introduction to Fiction and Norton Introduction to Literature, among other anthologies. WAITING Ha Jin's first full-length novel, is the winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for fiction. He has also written a collection of stories called, THE BRIDEGROOM, published by Pantheon Books.

An Interview with Ha Jin by Chris GoGwilt
(courtesy of guernicamag.com)

Chris GoGwilt: Can you recall when you knew you were going to become a writer? Perhaps a defining moment in your five years of service in the Chinese army?

Ha Jin: In the Chinese army we did write a lot, but we mainly produced propaganda. I didn't think I wanted to be a writer at the time. I finished the poetry manuscript [for Between Silences] at the end of 1988 and soon that manuscript was accepted for publication, but even at that time I was not serious [about writing] because I thought I would return to China. But later, because of the Tiananmen Massacre, I could not return, and I had to figure out how to survive. I had a few friends who were teaching writing, had a few books under their belt, and I thought that if I continued to write, maybe if I published another three books, I might get a decent job. I asked my wife, "Can you wait for me eight or nine years?” And she said, "Okay."

For a long time I couldn't decide whether to write in English because I knew there was this tradition: Conrad and Nabokov, those giants there.

Chris GoGwilt: You say you were not serious, even when you published Between Silences, but in that book, in the prologue, you make a very eloquent statement about your commitment as a writer.

Ha Jin: I said that, as a fortunate person, I wanted to speak for those unfortunate people who had created history, but at the same time were fooled by history. But that was not the kind of ambition a writer in my situation could fulfill because I didn't plan to write in English. What I meant at the time was just for that book.

Chris GoGwilt: Clearly Tiananmen Square dramatically altered things for you. How did that change your sense of commitment as a writer?

Ha Jin: I served in the Chinese army, and the army was called The People's Army, so we were from the people and supposed to serve the people and protect the people. I was shocked that the field armies would go into the city and really suppress civilians. Then my son arrived. That was a turning point. It was clear that he would be an American. At the airport, at the sight of him, I thought of his future. For me it was not clear, but for him to be an American, that also implied that I would have to stay for many years. Forget about the commitment. I realized there was nothing of that kind anymore: no grandeur, no rhetoric anymore.

Chris GoGwilt: No speaking for the oppressed or speaking for the silenced people?

Ha Jin: Certainly what I faced was a matter of survival. Once I decided to stay in the States, I had to start a different kind of life, as an individual like everybody else.

Chris GoGwilt: So in a sense you're saying that the moment when you really found that you had to write was when you discovered that your son was committed to America, not yourself?

Ha Jin: Yes. But at the same time it was a matter of existence, not just to bring food to the table. I really wanted to make the best use of my life, and one thing I discovered… for a long time I couldn't decide whether to write in English because I knew there was this tradition: Conrad and Nabokov, those giants there. There was a well-known Russian critic who wrote to Chekhov. At the time Chekhov was not writing his most ambitious work, but just stories for newspapers. And the critic said, "You know, you should cherish your talent, and you should be more ambitious. You should write in more complicated forms." At the end of the letter, the critic said, "I don't know about your income. If it's small, starve. We all started that way." But I realized that in the United States, that might not happen. As long as you are in good health, and you do some work, you can survive.

When a writer adopts another language there are a lot of motivations: necessity, ambition, estrangement.

(This interview is continued here.)

Bibliography

Between Silences (poetry) (1990)
Facing Shadows (poetry) (1996)
Ocean of Words (short stories) (1996)
Under the Red Flag (short stories) (1997)
In the Pond (novel) (1998)
Waiting (novel) (1999)
The Bridegroom (short stories) (2000)
Wreckage (poetry) (2001)
The Crazed (novel) (2002)
War Trash (novel) (2004)
A Free Life (novel) (forthcoming November 2007)

Book News, In Brief

Donald Trump may be an arrogant and questionably intelligent pseudo-businessman, but he sure knows how to promote a book signing in a way that appeals to non-readers and cheap sonuvab**ches everywhere. This past week, in an effort to garner headlines/promote his new book, Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump offered New York's huddled masses yearning to receive something for free varying amounts of cold, hard cash if they would just show up. According to TheTimes.co, the first 100 people in line were given a $100 bill. The next 200 people got $50 each, and the next 1000 people got $10 each. A total of $30,000 given away. What sort of idiot stands in line for (a.) the chance to 'meet' Donald Trump or (b.) ten lousy bucks?

After stealing a page or two from the Micheal Jackson Book of Promotional Touring , J.K. Rowling managed to top her recent controversies by announcing that the fictitious wizard Dumbledore is fictitiously gay. (In related news, Jackson continues to deny similar accusations, while the gay community continues to decry the moral values of the straights for allowing a wacko such as Jacko to claim membership in their ranks.)

Jonathan Demme, the film director who outfitted David Byrne in the giant, white suit and served Hannibal Lechter a dinner of brains 'with fava beans and a nice Chianti,' is now helping Jimmy Carter to translate his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, into a movie. Link

The Comics Reporter has posted a great interview that they did with Charles Brownstein regarding the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (it's the ACLU for funny page folk). Recently, the CBLDF changed the line up of their board of directors to include a number of names that once were associated with, if not outright censorship, at least a stance that was not wholly on the side of unencumbered artistic expression. Interesting stuff.