The Crazed

Best-selling, National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin displays his impressive storytelling gifts in this rich examination of contemporary China and the civil unrest at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Professor Yang suffers a stroke and is confined to a hospital bed. Now Jian Wan, Yang's brightest student and future son-in-law, must suspend his rigorous studies to care for his mentor. Jian dutifully keeps watch as Yang begins raving madly, condemning everything while pleading with unseen tormentors.

Has Yang gone insane, or is he no longer capable of hiding painful secrets? With his own beliefs and expectations rattled, Jian begins to see the world in a much different light - just as the fateful events at Tiananmen Square begin.

The Crazed is a daring and powerful novel that puts a human face on the brutal injustice that continues to haunt China. Narrator Norm Lee expertly voices the confusion of a young man struggling to understand the world around him.