本訪談於二○○八年四月進行，受訪者為一九八五年自中國赴美，於一九九○年代初決定以英文創作並送獲美國文學大獎的哈金。訪談的內容頗為廣泛，如以非母語創作之艱辛，受訪者的文學理念與文學系統，其作為詩人與小說家的角色，詩作的內容與特色，對於自己小說創作的評論(包括二○○七年底甫出版的長篇小說《自由人生》)，文學創作中技藝與眼界的關係，知識氛圍與檢查制度的問題，華人離散與華文文學的觀念，寫作與出版計畫，以及台灣於華文世界文化生產中之地位等。

Conducted in April 2008 via e-mail, this interview with Ha Jin explores various aspects of this first-generation Chinese American author who writes in English and has won a number of prestigious literary awards in the U.S. The issues covered include the difficulties of writing in a language other than his mother tongue, his literary ideas and system, his role as a poet and storyteller, the contents and characteristics of his poetry, his comments on his fiction (including his latest novel A Free Life), the relationship between craft and vision, the question of intellectual climate and censorship, the concepts of Chinese diaspora and Sinophone literature, his writing and publishing projects, and his observation of Taiwan as a site of cultural production in the Chinese speaking world.