"Waiting On" Wednesday: Nanjing Requiem

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.




Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
Pantheon, October 18, 2011

Synopsis:

In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin-an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women's College-decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the school and the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for nearly 10,000 homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on behalf of the hapless victims. Even when order and civility are restored, Vautrin remains deeply embattled, and she is haunted by the lives she could not save.

With extraordinarily evocative precision, Ha Jin re-creates the terror, the harrowing deprivations, and the menace of unexpected violence that defined life in Nanjing during the occupation. In Minnie Vautrin he has given us an indelible portrait of a woman whose convictions and bravery prove, in the end, no match for the maelstrom of history. At once epic and intimate, Nanjing Requiem is historical fiction at its most resonant, from one of the most acclaimed Chinese American writers of our time.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

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