Looking for Tank Man - by Ha Jin (Paperback)

About the Book

"A Harvard student from China discovers the fraught, hidden history of the Tiananmen Square massacre in this powerful novel of protest and suppression from the National Book Award-winning author. When the Chinese premier visits Harvard, international student Pei Lulu encounters a lone woman protesting who will drastically change her understanding of the People's Republic and her own place in the world. For the first time, Lulu learns of the 1989 protest movement and the government's violent response. Determined to find out more, she seeks answers from her family, who share surprising stories of their involvement, and from a formative university course based on powerful firsthand accounts. At once a compelling coming-of-age tale and a poignant tribute to the courage of activists, Looking for Tank Man keeps this tragedy alive in the public memory and warns against the dangers of authoritarian regimes"--

Book Synopsis

One of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year

A Harvard student from China discovers the fraught, hidden history of the Tiananmen Square massacre in this powerful novel of protest and suppression from the National Book Award-winning author.

When the Chinese premier visits Harvard, international student Pei Lulu encounters a lone protester, who will drastically change her understanding of the People's Republic and her own place in the world. For the first time, Lulu learns of the 1989 protest movement and the government's violent response. Determined to find out more, she seeks answers from her family, who share surprising stories of their involvement, and from a formative university course based on powerful firsthand accounts.

At once a compelling coming-of-age tale and a poignant tribute to the courage of activists, Looking for Tank Man keeps this tragedy alive in the public memory and warns against the dangers of authoritarian regimes.

Review Quotes

"Notable...deserve[s] your attention...In [Jin's] latest novel, a fictional Chinese graduate student, studying in the U.S. years later, turns her research toward comprehending and coming to terms with the [Tiananmen Square] massacre--and reckoning with the urgency of keeping its memory alive." --NPR

"A timely cautionary tale about authoritarian rule and a sensitive portrayal of the power of knowledge and the challenges of academia." --Booklist (starred review)

"A skillfully charged blend of history, politics, and storytelling that revisits a moment that many wish were forgotten." --Kirkus Reviews

"A novel for our times: a coming-of-age story about protest." --Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of the Year

"This is the story of powerless little people caught up in a confusing maelstrom, at the receiving end of senseless violence...The book is filled with memorable characters." --Arts Fuse

"Juxtaposes coming-of-age with activism." --Book Riot, The Best New Book Releases

"Looking for Tank Man is a deeply moving and important novel, shaped by meticulous research and illuminated by Ha Jin's singular voice. Spanning Harvard, Flushing, and Beijing, it traverses geographies and timelines to tell the powerful story of one young woman's quest for knowledge, and how her findings reshape her understanding of her homeland and herself. This is a novel that captures the urgency of reckoning with atrocity, the intergenerational weight of history, and how the past--once uncovered--continues to shape our moral consciousness. A vital, haunting story about truth, memory, and the price of knowing." --Michelle Min Sterling, New York Times bestselling author of Camp Zero

About the Author

Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People's Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin's novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.