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Jin, Ha : Wreckage

Hanging Loose Press, New York City, NY, 2001

ISBN 1882413970

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 111 pages. The author's third collection of poems. One of the most finest poetic achievements of our time. The collection was published in three editions simultaneously. So all of them are true First Editions: The Limited Edition of 100 numbered and signed copies (in red cloth boards), the Limited Edition of 400 copies (in blue cloth boards, un-numbered and un-signed), and the Softcover Trade Edition. All three editions are now scarce. Presents Ha Jin's "Wreckage". Poetry-as-remembrance. "Numerous rocks of Chinese history are overturned in the star novelist's third collection, usually revealing darkness and decay. The book begins with poems about Yu The Great who, according to legend, devised a drainage system when the Yellow River flooded its banks around the 20th century BC, wreaking havoc on the land and its people. Even when 'caged in high dikes', its threat is not forgotten: 'Who can keep the river up/in the clouds forever? '. The notion that disaster is always just around the corner pervades the collection though its components read less like poems than terse mini-fables stitched loosely together to form a tapestry of sacrifice and suffering. Violence comes from without and within, in the form of attacks by so-called barbarians as well as the capriciousness and brutality of emperors and bureaucrats. The heinous treatment of women is a recurrent theme, from a concubine mutilated and thrown into an outhouse pit ('Human Pig') to a gruesome account of foot binding ('A Young Girl's Lament'), in which it is observed how 'the toes curl in like dead caterpillars. /Who would think they belong to a human being? ' " (Publishers Weekly). An absolute "must-have" title for Ha Jin collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Ha Jin. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Softcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for "Ocean of Words". Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award For Short Fiction for "Under the Red Flag". Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Award in 1999 for "Waiting". One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER HA JIN TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1882413970.

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