Yiyun Li (born November 4, 1972) is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,[1][2] the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End,[3] and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose.[4] She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.[5]
Yiyun Li | |
---|---|
Native name | 李翊雲 |
Born | Beijing, China | November 4, 1972
Occupation | Author, professor |
Language | English |
Nationality | Chinese |
Alma mater | Peking University University of Iowa Iowa Writers' Workshop |
Notable works | |
Notable awards | MacArthur Fellow Guggenheim Fellowship |
Children | 2 |
Website | |
yiyunli |
Li was born and raised in Beijing, China.[6][7] Her mother was a teacher and her father worked as a nuclear physicist.[8] In Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, Li recounts moments from her early life, including the abuse she received from her mother.[9]
Following a compulsory year of service in the People's Liberation Army,[6] she went on to earn a Bachelor of Science at Peking University in 1996. In the same year she moved to the US.[1] In 2000, she earned an Master of Science in immunology at the University of Iowa.[10] In 2005, she earned an Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction and fiction from The Nonfiction Writing Program and the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.[10]
Li's stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker,[11] The Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Two of the stories from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers were adapted into 2007 films directed by Wayne Wang: The Princess of Nebraska and the title story, which Li adapted herself.
Yiyun Li lived in Oakland, California from 2005- 2008 with her husband and their two sons. During that time, she taught at Mills College.[12] From 2008-2017, she moved out of Oakland to assume a faculty position at the Department of English at the University of California, Davis.[12] Since 2017, she has taught creative writing at Princeton University.[12]
Li had a breakdown in 2012 and attempted suicide twice.[13][9] After recuperating and leaving the hospital, she lost interest in writing fiction, and for a whole year, she focused on reading several biographies, memoirs, diaries and journals. According to her, reading about other people's lives "was a comfort."[13] Her experiences with depression resulted in her 2017 memoir Dear Friend.[13] A few months after the book was published, her sixteen-year-old son, Vincent, killed himself,[9][10] which she explored in her 2019 novel Where Reasons End.[14][15]
In September 2022, Li published The Book of Goose, a tale of a literary hoax spun by two thirteen-year-old girls in post-war France. The New York Times described it as 'an existential fable that illuminates the tangle of motives behind our writing of stories.'.[16] In April 2023, the novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[17]
Li has taught fiction at the University of California, Davis and is a professor of creative writing at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.[18]
On 16 February 2024, her nineteen-year-old son, James, was fatally hit by a train in the Princeton township.[19]
Li has received several notable fellowships, including the Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, Texas; a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (2010),[20][21] and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2020).[22]
In 2007, Granta named Li in their list of the 21 best young American novelists.[23] In 2010, she was listed among The New Yorker's "20 Under 40."
In 2012, Li was selected as a judge for The Story Prize after having been a finalist for the award in 2010,[24] and in 2013, she judged the Man Booker International Prize.[25]
In 2014, she won The American Academy of Arts and Letters's Benjamin H. Danks Award. In 2020, she won the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction,[26][27][28] and in 2022, she won the PEN/Malamud Award, which "recognizes writers who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short story form."[29][30]
In 2023, she was elected as a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.[31]
In 2024, she was named a finalist for The Story Prize.[32]
Year | Title | Award | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | A Thousand Years of Good Prayers | Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award | Winner | [33] |
2006 | Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award | Winner | [1] | |
Guardian First Book Award | Winner | [34] | ||
Whiting Award for Fiction | Winner | [35][36] | ||
California Book Award for Fiction | Winner | |||
2010 | Gold Boy, Emerald Girl | The Story Prize | Finalist | [37][38] |
The Vagrants | RUSA Notable Books for Adults | Selection | [39][40] | |
2011 | Gold Boy, Emerald Girl | Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award | Shortlist | [41][42] |
NCIBA Book of the Year Award for Fiction | Winner | [43] | ||
St. Francis College Literary Prize | Finalist | [44] | ||
The Vagrants | International Dublin Literary Award | Finalist | [45][46] | |
2015 | "A Sheltered Woman" | Sunday Times Short Story Award | Winner | [47][48] |
2020 | Where Reasons End | PEN/Jean Stein Book Award | Winner | [3][49][50] |
2023 | The Book of Goose | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | Winner | [51][52] |
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction | Longlist | [53] |
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (March 2015) |
Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected |
---|---|---|---|
Extra | 2003 | "Extra". New Yorker. December 14, 2003. | |
The Proprietress | 2005 | "The Proprietress". Zoetrope: All-Story. 9 (4). Fall 2005. | |
House Fire | 2007 | "House Fire". Granta. 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2. Spring 2007. | |
Prison | 2006 | "Prison". Tin House (28). Summer 2006. | Li, Yiyun (2008). "Prison". In Furman, Laura (ed.). The O. Henry Prize stories 2008. New York: Anchor Books. |
A Man Like Him | 2008 | "A Man Like Him". New Yorker. May 12, 2008. | Li, Yiyun (2009). "A man like him". In Sebold, Alice (ed.). The best American short stories 2009. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. |
Alone | 2009 | "Alone". New Yorker. November 16, 2009. | |
The Science Of Flight | 2010 | "The Science Of Flight". New Yorker. August 30, 2010. | |
A Small Sacrifice | 2010 | "A Small Sacrifice". The Threepenny Review. 123. Fall 2010. | |
A Sheltered Woman | 2014 | "A Sheltered Woman". New Yorker. March 10, 2014. | Li, Yiyun (2015). A Sheltered Woman. HarperCollins. |
On The Street Where You Live | 2017 | "On The Street Where You Live". New Yorker. January 9, 2017. | |
A Small Flame | 2017 | "A Small Flame". The New Yorker. 93 (12): 54–61. May 8, 2017. | |
A Flawless Silence | 2018 | A Flawless Silence. New Yorker. April 23, 2018 | |
When We Were Happy We Had Other Names | 2018 | When We Were Happy We Had Other Names. New Yorker. September 24, 2019 | |
All Will Be Well | 2019 | All Will Be Well. New Yorker. March 11, 2019 | |
The Ability to Cry | 2020 | The Ability to Cry. New Yorker. November 16, 2020 | |
If You Are Lonely and You Know It | 2021 | If You Are Lonely and You Know It. Amazon Original Stories. February 25, 2021 | |
Hello, Goodbye | 2021 | Hello, Goodbye. New Yorker. November 8, 2021 | |
Wednesday's Child | 2023 | Wednesday's Child. New Yorker. January 23, 2023 |