Waiting

"Waiting" is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart. For more than seventeen years, the ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young - a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits every summer, year after year, in order to ask unsuccessfully for a divorce. Ha Jin draws on his intimate knowledge of contemporary China to create a novel of unexpected richness and feeling.