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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"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
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Ha Jin's Looking for Tank Man