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Nanjing Requiem

by Ha Jin

3.12 of 5 stars 3.12 · rating details · 494 ratings · 145 reviews

The award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash returns to his homeland in a searing new novel that unfurls during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century: the Rape of Nanjing.

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 Am...more

Hardcover, 303 pages

Published October 18th 2011 by Pantheon (first published January 1st 2011)

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Apr 25, 2012 Shomeret rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, my-reviews

I read this book because I thought a novel would be a better way for me to read about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing. Reportage of atrocities can de-sensitize us so that they have less impact and you care less about the victims. Fiction with characterization where you see into the minds and hearts of the characters and see their lives in context should make you care more. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have said this is closer to reportage than fiction.

One of the problems is that Ha Jin...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Megan rated it 2 of 5 stars

During World War II, Japan decided to attack China, but many people do not realize how horrific this event truly was. This event is referred to as the Rape of Nanking because so many people in Nanking, China were raped and tortured that some historians believe that this was worse than the Holocaust.
The author Ha Jin took on the challenge of writing about the Rape of Nanking in Nanjing Requiem. In my opinion, Ha Jin did a pretty good job at telling the story; with vivid details that will make the...more During World War II, Japan decided to attack China, but many people do not realize how horrific this event truly was. This event is referred to as the Rape of Nanking because so many people in Nanking, China were raped and tortured that some historians believe that this was worse than the Holocaust.
The author Ha Jin took on the challenge of writing about the Rape of Nanking in Nanjing Requiem. In my opinion, Ha Jin did a pretty good job at telling the story; with vivid details that will make the hairs on your back stand up. The only problem is that the story itself lacked structure. Don’t get me wrong, some chapters I couldn’t put the book down; but than others I couldn’t wait to put the book down.
Ha Jin tells the reader of an American Missionary, Minnie Vautrin, who is also the dean of Jinling Women’s College. After the Japanese troops attack China, she decides to stay and set up a refugee camp for women and children. At first she believes that the college can hold no more than five thousand, but in the end the college holds more than ten thousand people.
Thus, so far it sounds like a well written plot, which it is; the only problem is the story gets confusing. In each chapter, along with amazingly intense details, the reader is introduced to a new character. This is what makes the reading hard to comprehend. All in the same chapter, we are introduced to a main character in the middle of the book, and then the character leaves.
Most people do not like the beginning of stories, mostly because the author has to set the mood and introduce all the characters. In my opinion, Nanjing Requiem always sounds like the beginning of a book. The reader is always being hit with new main characters, when I would rather just focus on the lives of a few. It would have made the story more appealing if Ha Jin just focused on a group of the foreigner’s lives and what their view on the situation was; rather than focusing on every foreigner that walks across the street.
Therefore I did not completely like the story, but some parts I did enjoy reading. Ha Jin knows how to create a well written tale; I just would prefer that it would be a little different. All in all, the story still had numerous situations that the reader would begin to believe they were in China during World War II. I would still recommend this book to anybody wanting to learn about the Rape of Nanking, just remember this book may not really hook you to never put it down.
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Sep 03, 2012 Joyce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, set-in-locations-outside-usa

The novel Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin tells the story of the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese before the beginning of WWII. Although it is fiction, it is based on historical facts and real people who lived in Nanjing at that time. The story is told by a woman associated with Jingling Women's College in Nanjing that acted as a refuge camp for 10,000 women during the time Nanjing was being attacked and taken over by the Japanese. It is a very compelling story describing atrocities and horrors endured...more

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Aug 27, 2012 NyiNya rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ha Jin never goes for the jugular. His cool, reserved style works to his advantage in "Nanjing Requiem. The facts are so horrific, that letting too much emotion creep into the narrative could take it over the edge into Grand Guignol.

The focus of Nanjing Requiem is Jinling Women's College. Ha Jin seamlessly blends real and fictional figures and locations to bring us into the center of six weeks of hell on earth. As the Japanese advance, Chaing Kai-shek flees to Chongqing; he leaves his armies in...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ha Jin’s latest novel, Nanjing Requiem, released last fall, takes on the huge challenge of setting a novel during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China’s Nanjing City. It is not an easy task to write a
book with a foundation based in the torture and slaughter of thousands of civilians, but that is the challenge Jin has set up for himself with this new book.

Jin tells the story of the fall of Nanjing, opening with the heartbreaking tale of Ban, a young boy who serves as an errand-runner for...more Ha Jin’s latest novel, Nanjing Requiem, released last fall, takes on the huge challenge of setting a novel during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China’s Nanjing City. It is not an easy task to write a
book with a foundation based in the torture and slaughter of thousands of civilians, but that is the challenge Jin has set up for himself with this new book.

Jin tells the story of the fall of Nanjing, opening with the heartbreaking tale of Ban, a young boy who serves as an errand-runner for the Western –funded and run Jingli College, who was whisked away by Japanese soldiers and forced to do their bidding, fearing for his life if he didn’t cooperate. After this initial chapter, the rest of the book (with one other short exception at the end) is narrated by Anling, a Chinese woman who works for the college. While she is the primary story-teller, the roles of the foreign citizens are the focus of much of the novel.

Nanjing’s citizens were cruelly treated when the Japanese army overthrew the Chinese government there, as the invading army’s officers allowed their soldiers to run wild, abandoning any sense of
decency and humanity. Countless women, of all ages, were raped and killed. Men were forced to watch their relatives’ endure these heinous acts and then they themselves were slaughtered. Jin doesn’t shy away from the realities of what occurred in city in the late 1930’s. Because of this brutally honest look at those atrocities, Nanjing Requiem can be difficult to read. His writing relays the stark realities of the horrors committed, making the book, at times, painful to endure. It is not a leisurely book, written for the feint-of-heart.

With the focus on the deeds of the foreigners living in Nanjing, I was disappointed that Ha Jin didn’t focus more on the positive aspects of Chinese culture and traditions. Oftentimes, the Chinese women (other than the main narrator herself) are made out to be petty and squabbling and wholly selfish. I would love to have seen him incorporate more Chinese women who sacrificed for the cause of helping others. The characters, both Chinese and foreign, were pretty flatly drawn, making it hard to connect with them while reading the novel.

Nanjing Requiem, while dealing with a terrible period in Chinese history, really focuses on the roles that foreigners played in saving thousands of people from certain death. These characters, mostly American missionaries, put their lives on the line for the people of the country in which they live. They show a basic humanity and dignity which is a direct foil to that characterization of the Japanese forces. With this said, the writing lacks the emotion one would expect from such a horrific event. The writing is sufficient. It describes scenes, it fleshes out characters, it has a clear beginning, middle and end. What it doesn’t do is move the reader to tears or even a conjure of a great amount of anger. If I had not read several other books about the occurrences in Nanjing (I would specifically recommend The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang), I don’t think the absolute travesty of the situation would have been clear. In several places, Jin provides clear descriptions of varies horrors, and yet they come across as nothing more than flatly written fiction.

Overall, this book fell short of what it could have been. I am disappointed that a book with the potential of this one didn’t create more of an emotional reaction. When I initially started this novel, I
thought I was going to love it, but around the halfway mark I realized that it was going to fall squarely in the “okay” category. Ha Jin’s Nanjing Requiem earns:
2 SHELLS(less)

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Jan 21, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction

A Fine Fictional Recounting of the Nanjing Massacre

Ha Jin's "Nanjing Requiem" is a fictional recollection of the infamous Nanjing Massacre, as seen through the eyes of American missionary Minnie Vautrin, the dean of Jingling Women's College, and her fictitious assistant and friend, Ahling Gao, the novel's narrator. Much to his credit, Ha Jin has made a most impressive case explaining why and how Vautrin's valiant acts in saving innocent Chinese civilians during the Japanese seizure of Nanjing, t...more A Fine Fictional Recounting of the Nanjing Massacre

Ha Jin's "Nanjing Requiem" is a fictional recollection of the infamous Nanjing Massacre, as seen through the eyes of American missionary Minnie Vautrin, the dean of Jingling Women's College, and her fictitious assistant and friend, Ahling Gao, the novel's narrator. Much to his credit, Ha Jin has made a most impressive case explaining why and how Vautrin's valiant acts in saving innocent Chinese civilians during the Japanese seizure of Nanjing, the Chinese capital, and its immediate bloody aftermath in late December, 1937 should be viewed as far more noteworthy than the German John Rabe's celebrated humanitarian activities recounted in Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" and in the edited "Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe". His excellent descriptive prose vividly recalls the horrific sights and sounds experienced by the real Minnie Vautrin and her American and Chinese colleagues at Jingling Women's College. However, despite the excellence of his writing, Ha Jin never offers the reader a truly gripping, mesmerizing account of Vautrin, who was justly celebrated by Nanjing civilians as the living "Goddess of Mercy". His Minnie Vautrin is a far less compelling protagonist than the fictional characters he has surrounded herself with, starting with her friend, Ahling Gao, a Protestant Christian Chinese national. Paradoxically the reader is left with a much better understanding of Gao's own aspirations and fears while the novel's "true" protagonist, Vautrin, comes across as aloof, quite detached, as if she was a mere cipher reacting helplessly to Nanjing's relentless descent into Hell courtesy of the bestial, quite savage, Imperial Japanese army of occupation. While I have serious reservations regarding Ha Jin's portrayal of Minnie Vautrin, his literary excellence in recounting the infamous "Rape of Nanjing" remains the main reason why his latest novel is one that still warrants a wide readership.

(Reposted from my 2011 Amazon review)(less)

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Jan 18, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

The initial chapters are a disturbing portrait of the Japanese invasion of Nanjing. It is more an 'account' of that plus the aftermath rather than a 'novel.'

The award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash returns to his homeland in a searing new novel that unfurls during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century: the Rape of Nanjing.

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 t...more

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Jan 12, 2012 Jerome Parisse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nanjing Requiem takes place during the invasion of China by Japan, more specifically the rape of the then capital Nankin (Nanjing). The Japanese committed atrocities and killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians, which to this day they do not fully recognise. During the siege of Nankin, a number of foreigners, mainly Americans, who had decided to stay, created neutral zones to protect civilians, in particular children and women. Naning Requiem relates the story of such a foreigner, Minnie Vautri...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Felice rated it 2 of 5 stars

One of the novels I have been looking forward to the most this fall is Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin. Alas…my expectations, very high after Jin’s previous six novels, were not met.

In 1937 Japanese troops took control of the Chinese capital of Nanjing from the Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese then literally wreaked havoc on the civilians of Nanjing. In just the starting weeks of the occupation Japanese soldiers killed over 250,000 men, women and children and 20,000 women and girls we...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Louise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

The award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash returns to his homeland in a searing new novel that unfurls during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century: the Rape of Nanjing.

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 welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken...more

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Oct 28, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

NANJING REQUIEM. (2011). Ha Jin. ***.
The author is normally a writer whose prose resembles poetry. His sentences flow smoothly and precisly describe his characters, their surroundings and their actions. This book is no exception, but somehow it doesn’t all come together the same way. This is the story of The Rape of Nanjing (Nanking) by the Chinese in 1937. The protagonist is Minnie Vantrin, an American missionary, the dean of Jinling Women’s College. The school is for young women only and is w...more NANJING REQUIEM. (2011). Ha Jin. ***.
The author is normally a writer whose prose resembles poetry. His sentences flow smoothly and precisly describe his characters, their surroundings and their actions. This book is no exception, but somehow it doesn’t all come together the same way. This is the story of The Rape of Nanjing (Nanking) by the Chinese in 1937. The protagonist is Minnie Vantrin, an American missionary, the dean of Jinling Women’s College. The school is for young women only and is well regarded throughout China. When the Japanese invade, Minnie decides to stay on at the school, thinking that the fact that she is an American will help protect the girls along with the men and women who work there. She decides – after the Japanese have taken over the city – to convert the school and its grounds into a safe haven – a safety zone or refugee camp – for young women and their mothers. The school under this plan could accomodate about 2,000 people. She soon finds herself providing shelter for over 10,000. She is constantly battling the incursion of Japanes troops, who see this safety zone as a concentrated source of young women. Along with this constant threat, she has to somehow deal with the administrative staff of Japanese who control the distribution of food and water throughout the city. In her travels from the school to the various administration buildings she sees and learns of the various atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers. Thousands of people had been slaughtered and thousands of young women raped then killed by the lustful men of the army. All of these atrocities are described in sufficient detail to have them inscribed on the readers’ minds. But, yet, the book reads more like the notes of a newspaper reporter. Somehow the usual spark of Ha Jin’s writing was missing and I was left cold and, frustratingly, unfeeling at all of the despicable acts described. It was certainly a sad story, especially the tragic ending, but I felt like a reader twice removed.
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Apr 20, 2013 Alan Mills rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Japanese slaughtered and raped the civilian population as they stormed Nanjing at the beginning of what would become World War Two. At this point, the US was not at war with anyone, and Europe was still trying to appease Hitler. So the main action was in China--and shamefully, these atrocities were ignored by the rest of the world. This background makes a perfect setting for a wonderful piece of historical fiction--which can bring characters alive by delving into their inner motivations in a...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really, really liked this book. Having recently read "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet", this book provided another, decidedly Chinese, perspective on the Chinese/Japanese conflict during the late 1930s. I had also read "The Rape of Nanjing" by Iris Chang when it was published, so I was (sickeningly) aware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese on the civilians of Nanjing. Jin's account of the humanitarian efforts made by actual people to protect the inhabitants of this city during...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars

As a reader of history and historical fiction who has long been fascinated with the Japanese annexation of Manchukuo and the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, I rarely come across anything about the Rape of Nanking that doesn't enthrall me. Which is to say, you'd think I'd enjoy Ha Jin's most recent novel a lot more than I did. Why I didn't care for it at all deserves a brief postmortem.

First of all, the quality of Ha Jin's writing has been in decline since his brilliant early works in Engl...more As a reader of history and historical fiction who has long been fascinated with the Japanese annexation of Manchukuo and the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, I rarely come across anything about the Rape of Nanking that doesn't enthrall me. Which is to say, you'd think I'd enjoy Ha Jin's most recent novel a lot more than I did. Why I didn't care for it at all deserves a brief postmortem.

First of all, the quality of Ha Jin's writing has been in decline since his brilliant early works in English--Under the Red Flag: Stories, In the Pond, Waiting, and The Crazed --with their skeleton-spare prose and storylines that feel like modern-day myths of quiet desperation. His English vocabulary has become richer over time, but his use of everyday idiom remains stilted, and his prose has gone from being terse and succinct to merely flat and affectless. What's more, he seems to have no better understanding of how to construct a plot than he did when he wrote his early short stories. Things just happen, one event after another, with no buildup of tension or demonstrable point. This was the case in his previous two novels, the historical War Trash and the memoirish A Free Life (he has clearly preferred to write novels in which a plot structure is predetermined by the course of actual events, rather than try to develop plot on his own), and it's also the case with Nanjing Requiem.

Most of the major characters in Nanjing Requiem aside from the narrator are based on historical figures, the protagonist being the American missionary and educator Minnie Vautrin, who went from being a teacher and administrator at the U.S.-sponsored Jinling Women's College in Nanjing, to helping save thousands of Chinese lives during the brutal Japanese invasion in December of 1937 and through the course of the following year of scarcely less harsh occupation. Vautrin was an enigmatic figure: a devout Christian who nonetheless sank into a terminal depression upon her return to the U.S. in 1940 and committed suicide the following year. Many of the other Westerners who helped save Chinese lives amid the Japanese Army's atrocities were also interesting and deeply conflicted people, including the German businessman John Rabe, a Nazi Party member who saved a quarter million people from slaughter. Yet we come to know very little of their interior lives, as the entire story is told from the point of view of a minor character, an intellectually rather limited Chinese employee of the College. I've encountered more fully-developed characters in comic books, and the cataclysmic scope of these events deserves more than the narrow perspective of a single person. On top of that, the prose itself is dry, dull, rote: overall, it felt to me as though Ha Jin had written this book in his sleep. I'm giving it two stars because the subject matter itself was well-chosen and deserves to be more widely known; but there are plenty of far more worthy treatments of the Nanking Massacre in fiction and non-fiction--to say nothing of documentary and dramatic film--than this one.(less)

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Feb 08, 2012 Lara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads, books-i-didn-t-finish, books-i-didn-t-like, books-i-got-from-the-library, books-i-read-on-my-2011-2012-break, china-related-issues, chinese-history, daily-life-in-china, development-of-china, fiction, historical-fiction, japan, random-library-picks, survival, war, world-war-2, asia-pacific-world-war-2-issues

I'd certainly give this book a star and a half. I didn't like Jin's approach to the book, while I honestly believe this subject matter of this book is extremely important, as most people don't know much about the massacres of the Chinese during World War 2.

I wanted to like this book. I found the book to be dry and lifeless. While by no means is the massacre of Nanjing during World War 2 a happy subject, I just felt that this story while historically accurate was far less passionate than other b...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Marjorie Snook rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book. Jin's Waiting and The Crazed are two of my favorite books, and I pre-ordered this book on Amazon so I could get it as soon as it came out.

I was underwhelmed, though. While I did learn a lot about the occupation of Nanjing, and especially the role of foreigners in the city during the time, the book was strangely unengaging. The book is all told at a strange emotional remove, making the storytelling seem wooden and sometimes strained. Jin also had the very bad ha...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-edition

Although I've heard for years of the Rape of Nanking, the Nanking Massacre, I knew few details about it and nothing about the American woman, Minnie Vautrin, who was responsible for saving many lives by turning a college into a refuge center for women and children. This book is a fictionalized account of the nonfiction story, especially of Minnie, and I expected to love it.

The Chinese of Nanjing (Nanking) were subjected to unbelievable brutality, and I didn't expect this book to be a laugh-fest....more

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Jul 27, 2012 Brie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of Ha Jin and his writing style. This book is one of the best he has written, at least in my mind.

The book starts out following real events in WW2 with the Nanjing Massacre (otherwise known as "The Rape of Nanjing") by the invading Japanese troops. I was aware of this event and it was interesting to read a fictional story based during this time period. The story follows teachers at a women's college in Nanjing that protected women during the Massacre and then follows the story th...more

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Oct 28, 2011 Joy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

A fictional account based on history about the "Rape of Nanjing" from the perspective of a missionary and dean at an Ivy-League-like all girls college.

Having seen a movie on the life of John Rabe (Dutch Siemens employee who created a safe zone that saved thousands) and having read an earlier work by Ha Jin (The Crazed), I was looking forward to this one. It was ok - no where nearly as compelling as The Surrendered (Chaing Rae Lee ?)about a similar topic.

The most interesting things I learned were...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a tough book about the Japanese invasion of Nanjing, China in 1937. The story is based on documents and the diaries of Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and dean of the Jinling Women's College. Some of the atrocities described in the book were to awful to be real. "In war, victory justifies all sorts of violence. A complete victory means to have finished off the enemy. In fact, I believe that the Japanese committed all the atrocities as a celebrations of their victory, as a kind of...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Lynn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-books, religious, travel, war, fiction, literary-fiction

Ha Jin tells the story of Nanjing through the life of an American missionary named Minnie Vautrin. Before the Japanese invade, she is the principal of a women's college in the heart of Nanjing and negotiates with the Japanese to house women and children on the college campus as a refugee camp. She is able to secure some food stuffs and materials to help them survive such as warm clothes, tents, blankets, etc. As much as she prepares beforehand, she is unable to control the invasion like she hope...more

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Nov 19, 2011 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very hard book to rate. On one hand I'm really glad that I read it having learned a lot about a time and place in history that I knew nothing about. On the other hand, however, it was not a particularly positive time for anyone (neither aggressor nor victim) and these events serve as a reminder of what not to do. That said, there are some characters who show the world that there is hope and sensitivity and worthiness in the human race. Ha Jin's austere writing in Nanjing Requiem almost...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Tara Chevrestt rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-release, chinese-history-culture, historical-fiction, vine, arc

I appreciate what the author has done here: educated us about the rape Nanjing. I didn't know a thing about it till I picked up this book. But where I was expecting a historical novel about a strong missionary woman named Minnie, I got just what I said above, the rape of Nanjing.

The first part of the book... is one brutality after another, page after page of rape, sexual molesting and deforming of women, head slashing, and even urinating on children. The Japanese committed the foulest of acts....more

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Nov 04, 2011 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's very odd: Nanjing Requiem should be a whole lot better than it is. I don't know how else to put it. For a historical novel based on one of the most horrific episodes in world history, one that provides any writer, especially a brilliant one like Ha Jin, with plenty of opportunity to tell a compelling, heartbreaking story, Nanjing is surprisingly inert. There's a dry, detached tone throughout that prevented me from caring about or even knowing any of the people in harm's way. Events are repo...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Vanessa rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, but instead I was deeply disappointed. The writing was strangely emotionless -- full of tell not show -- with no useful insights into the thoughts and emotions of the main characters. I profoundly disliked the narrator, who ended up seeming weak and useless in the face of the described atrocities and their aftermath. And the true heroine of the novel, Minnie Vautrin, was described at such a remove that I might as well have been reading a (not particularly engag...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Monica rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book covers many of the same events as Hua-Ling Hu's American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking, but that books was painstakingly academic, and this is a much more personal account of the years of atrocity visited upon that city by the invading Japanese. Using the voice of Anling, a forewoman at Yinling College for Women, as the narrator was very effective. It gave a look at the internal workings of the school, the staff and student relationships, that the other book lacked. The descriptions o...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2013-audio

Nanjing Requiem, by Ha Jin, Narrated by Angela Lin, Produced by Recorded Books, Downloaded from audible.com.

A historical novel about an American woman who was superintendent of a girls’ school in Nanjing in 1937 when the Japanese invaded that part of China and sacked Nanjing. That period in history is now well known for being one of the worst in terms of wartime brutality: rapes, murders, turning people out of their homes, etc. The principal turned her girls school into a refugee center for wome...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Alice Meloy rated it 1 of 5 stars

National Book Award (and many other awards) winner Jin fails to live
up to his previous excellent standards of writing. This novel reads
like the author is afraid of getting his facts wrong. Though the
premise and the plot are intriguing (American missionary tries to save
as many Chinese as she can during the Japanese "rape" of Nanjing in
WWII), the dry reporting style prose is too detached for the reader to
get emotionally involved with the characters. There's lots of good
--and gory -- description of...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Danna rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: about-the-world, historical-fiction, tragic

I wanted to want to read this book, because I was struck by the history of it. I had never read about the Rape of Nanjing, and immediately felt like this was something I should know more about. Ha Jin's description starts off with a gory and graphic bang: it is scene after scene of horror, brutality, and human torture. However, the graphic nature of this historical novel is not what turned me off. Instead, it was Ha Jin's style of writing. I felt like his narrating lacked affect, and that I was...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Paula Hebert rated it 1 of 5 stars

normally I really enjoy all things chinese, and also chinese history, but when I got a quarter of the way through this book, and still felt like I was struggling through it, I closed the covers. the premise of the book is based on true events, and has been researched in depth, through reading of the diaries and journals of the people who were there during the occupation of nanjing, and tried desperately to help from the mission that they lived in at the time of the war. this would have just befo...more

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About Ha Jin

Ha Jin is the pen name of Xuefei Jin, a novelist, poet, short story writer, and Professor of English at Boston University. Ha Jin writes in English about China, a political decision post-Tiananmen Square.

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10409578-nanjing-requiem?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320558387l/10409578.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10409578-nanjing-requiem?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin[/url]

Nanjing Requiem

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