Following on the success of writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan, who became well-known for their depictions in English-language novels of the Chinese emigrant experience, the novel Waiting by the writer Ha Jin (who left China to go to the US in 1985) won the National Book Award (awarded by the American National Book Association) in 1999, drawing considerable attention from literary circles in the West.
繼湯婷婷、譚恩美等華裔作家以英文書寫中國移民故事成名之後，華裔作家哈金又以《等待》一書獲得美國書卷獎，在西方文壇引起相當大的注意。