February 7, 2001 SELINSGROVE, Pa. - Award-winning Chinese writer, Ha Jin, will read at The Writers' Institute's Visiting Writers Series at Susquehanna University Sunday, February 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Degenstein Center Theater. Jin's first novel, "Waiting," won the 1999 National Book Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Also the author of a novella, "In the Pond," two short story collections, "Ocean of Words," winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, and "Under the Red Flag," which received the Flannery O'Connor Award, Jin has published two volumes of poetry, "Between Silences" and "Facing Shadows." While Jin served in the Chinese People's Army from 1987 to 1995, he doesn't address political dissidence directly in his work. As Kirkus Reviews wrote about the 12 stories in "Under the Flag," his writing contains an "undercurrent of cynicism in the face of authority that's common to military (as well as Communist) societies. Splendidly fluid and clear, Ha Jin has managed to make an utterly alien world seem as familiar as an old friend." The Boston Globe called "Oceans of Words" "extraordinary" and said the stories were "shot through with wit and offer glimpses of human motivation that defy retelling…Read them all." Jin, currently teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, is the third of five writers scheduled to read at the university during the 2000-01 Visiting Writers Series sponsored by The Writers' Institute and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Other writers in the series include poet Toi Derricote, who has won two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and C. Michael Curtis, a senior editor at Atlantic Monthly, who will judge this year's Susquehanna Review award winners. The Jin reading is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dr. Gary Fincke, professor of English and director of Susquehanna University's Writers' Institute at (570) 372-4164 or gfincke@susqu.edu. Contact: Sam Alcorn 570-372-4119 #sa/1672#