Audiobook11 hours
Nanjing Requiem
Written by Ha Jin
Narrated by Angela Lin
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
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About this audiobook
Author Ha Jin's celebrated works have claimed several top literary awards, including three Pushcart Prizes. In Nanjing Requiem, the Japanese are poised to invade Nanjing. The dean of Jinling Women's College, Minnie Vautrin mistakenly believes her American citizenship will protect the school. But Vautrin's life becomes a daily struggle as the school becomes a refugee camp-and the slaughter of refugees begins. "Jin paints a convincing, harrowing portrait of heroism in the face of brutality."-Publishers Weekly
Author
Ha Jin
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of two books of poetry; two collections of stories, Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1997, and Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction in 1996; and In the Pond, a novel. He lives near Atlanta, where he is a professor at Emory University.
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Reviews for Nanjing Requiem
Rating: 3.025423715254237 out of 5 stars
3/5
59 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5never got into this novel and struggled to finish it. I finished it because the subject was historical,the invasion of Nanjing China by the Japanese. The writers sparse style did not allow me to get to know the characters in the novel beyond a superficial level
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A good historical novel about the Rape of Nanking and subsequent occupation by the Japanese army told from the perspective of a Chinese woman who works with Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary who helped save the lives of thousands of Chinese. Having read so many historical accounts of the atrocities committed during this period, I'm surprised there is not more detail about it in the story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5There was such potential in this novel, but the detachedness of the narrator mixed with the poorly intertwined story versus history made it difficult to have any sort of emotional involvement with the characters. A book like this needs to be devastating to be effective and Nanjing Requiem isn't.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ha Jin's prose is typically understated and monochromatic. This lends itself well to intimate tales set poignantly against implacably oppressive backdrops. In Nanjing Requiem, however, with its full on atrocity and attendant heroism, his usual style gives the impression, at least initially, of verging on tone deafness. The flat mix of quotidian and horrific seems somehow to diminish the event. We expect to be pushed or pulled to feel more. He does not provide the reader with an amplifying soundtrack. Instead he could simply be saying "Pay attention. This happened. Many were cruel. Many suffered. Some tried to move on. Others never could."
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Although 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. What surprised me is the lack of emotion in the book. I felt like I was being told “I did this and I did that” and “I said this and then I said that” but I didn't feel like I knew the characters, not the ones based on the real people involved and not the fictional ones. The book just didn't have the heart that I expected. For me, the book didn't live up to its potential either as historical fiction or as history.I was given a complimentary advance copy of the book for review.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Former National Book Award winner Ha Jin's newest novel recounts the cruel treatment of Chinese citizens during Japan's occupation of Nanking in 1937. The story focuses on the well-documented girls' school run by the American Minnie Vautrin, that serves as a refugee camp during the invasion, boarding some 10,000 displaced Chinese. While the novel started out strong with devastating descriptions of the real-life horror, the drama turned dry and uninvolving. How I wanted Jin to follow the stories of individual lives, and instead, the documentary approach felt unexplicably flat. quite a disappointment-- wish I'd read the nonfiction accounts instead.