The position required him to present work for evaluation every year. With fiction seeming like it would be a bit easier to produce, he began to seriously work at writing it. For Jin, fiction represented a means to survive in the English-speaking world. But, more than that, it was a means to survive in a meaningful manner.
教學需要每年提出作品審核，而相對於詩，發表小說似乎容易些，這是哈金認真寫小說的開始──為了在英語世界中生存，但不僅僅是生存，也為了生存得有意義。