PositiveThe New Yorker\"In The Banished Immortal, a biography of Li, the novelist Ha Jin narrates the poet’s unusual life with erudition and empathy ... One might easily take The Banished Immortal, his first work of nonfiction, as a departure from his previous work. But a close reading suggests that it is a return to his early themes, and a tribute to the poet he was before making his mark as a novelist ... The Banished Immortal is a biography, but it is also a document in which a rootless writer nods to the past inside him. Writing about Li Bai—his life, his work, and his country—Jin finally returns home.\
