SOURCE: A review of Ocean of Words, in The New York Times Book Review, June 2, 1996, p. 21.

[In the review below, Solomon summarizes the themes and tone of Ocean of Words.]

A veteran of the People's Army, the Chinese poet Ha Jin (who now teaches at Emory University) has produced a compelling collection of stories [Ocean of Words], powerful in their unity of theme and rich in their diversity of styles. Set along the Chinese-Russian border in the early 1970's, they range from a droll sketch of an affectionately derided, delicate young soldier to a painfully iconoclastic parable in which an old veteran reveals the ugly truth of Mad's Long March. Warily eyeing Soviet troops from their watchtowers, the characters in these stories believe that "they were barbarians and Revisionists, while we were Chinese and true Revolutionaries." But what they are all revealed to be is achingly human. Whether...