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Yiyun Li

リー・イーユン

Li Yiyun

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1972-11-04 （Beijing, China）
Nationality
China
Languages
English
Residence History
Beijing (birth and childhood) → Xinyang (compulsory service in the People's Liberation Army) → Oakland, California, USA → Davis, California, USA (UC Davis) → Princeton, New Jersey, USA (Princeton University)

Career

Occupations
Author, Professor
Active Years
1996-
Affiliations
Mills College (former faculty), University of California, Davis (Department of English, former faculty), Princeton University (Lewis Center for the Arts, creative writing faculty; Director of the Program in Creative Writing), A Public Space (editor)
Memberships
Royal Society of Literature (International Writer)

Education

Peking University
Degree: BS
Period: 1992–1996
Year of Graduation: 1996
Country: China
Bachelor of Science
University of Iowa
Immunology (graduate study)
Degree: MS
Period: 1998–2000
Year of Graduation: 2000
Country: United States
Master of Science in immunology. Left a PhD program to pursue writing.
University of Iowa (Iowa Writers' Workshop / Nonfiction Writing Program)
Creative nonfiction / Fiction
Degree: MFA
Period: 2003–2005
Year of Graduation: 2005
Country: United States
Earned an MFA in creative nonfiction and fiction

Awards

Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award
2005
Work: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Result: Winner
Guardian First Book Award
2006
Work: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Organization: The Guardian
Result: Winner
PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
2006
Work: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Organization: PEN America
Result: Winner
Whiting Award
2006
Organization: Whiting Foundation
Result: Winner
Sunday Times Short Story Award
2015
Work: A Sheltered Woman
Organization: The Sunday Times
Result: Winner
PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
2020
Work: Where Reasons End
Organization: PEN America
Result: Winner
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
2023
Work: The Book of Goose
Organization: PEN/Faulkner
Result: Winner
Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Fiction)
2020
Category: Fiction
Organization: Windham–Campbell (Yale University)
Result: Winner
PEN/Malamud Award
2022
Organization: PEN America
Result: Winner
Benjamin H. Danks Award (American Academy of Arts and Letters)
2014
Organization: American Academy of Arts and Letters
Result: Winner
MacArthur Fellowship
2010
Organization: MacArthur Foundation
Result: Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowship
Organization: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Result: Fellow
Pulitzer Prize (for 'Wednesday's Child' — finalist)
2024
Work: Wednesday's Child
Organization: Pulitzer Prize
Result: Finalist

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

2005 Short story collection

A collection of short stories addressing Chinese and immigrant experiences, family, and alienation, noted for its delicate psychological observation and quiet fable-like qualities.

MigrationFamilyAlienationMemory
Adaptations
  • [Film] The Princess of Nebraska / Wayne Wang (2007)
  • [Film] A Thousand Years of Good Prayers / Wayne Wang (2007)

The Vagrants

2009 Novel

A novel set in a small Chinese town after the Cultural Revolution, a multi-voiced narrative exploring the intersection of politics and private lives.

PoliticsRepressionCommunityMemory

Where Reasons End

2019 Novel (experimental)

An experimental novel structured as a dialogue between a mother and her deceased son, probing grief and the limits of language, drawing on the author's personal losses.

LossDialogic formLimits of languageMother and child

The Book of Goose

2022 Novel

Set in postwar France, the novel tells of a literary hoax devised by two 13-year-old girls, exploring invention, truth, and the tangled motives behind storytelling.

AuthorshipFiction vs. truthComing of ageHoax

Wednesday's Child

2023 Short story collection

A recent collection of short stories; it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

FamilyGriefEveryday ruptures

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

2017 Memoir

A candid memoir about depression, recovery, and the author's life and development as a writer.

DepressionRecoveryAutobiographical reflection

Bibliography

  • A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2005)
  • Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (2010)
  • The Vagrants (2009)
  • Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life (2017)
  • Where Reasons End (2019)
  • Must I Go (2020)
  • The Book of Goose (2022)
  • Wednesday's Child (2023)
  • Things in Nature Merely Grow (2025)

Adaptations

  • Two stories from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (including 'The Princess of Nebraska') were adapted into films directed by Wayne Wang in 2007.

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Concise, restrained proseEmphasis on psychological interiorityExperimental forms (e.g. dialogic structures)
Recurring Motifs
Mother–child relationshipsLoss and griefMigration and homeland memoryLimits of language

Health

  • Depression (major depressive episodes)
    2012 および以降の断続的期間
    Experienced a breakdown and hospitalization in 2012 with two suicide attempts. This shaped her writing and informed later memoirs and works dealing with grief.

Legacy

A Chinese-born writer who composes in English, Li is acclaimed for both short fiction and novels. Known for deep psychological insight and formal experimentation, she has received and been shortlisted for many international awards and teaches creative writing, influencing new generations of writers.

Academic Societies

  • Royal Society of Literature (International Writer)

Quotes

  • I used to say that all writing is not autobiographical — that was a lie.
    Source: Interviews (e.g. The Nation, The Guardian) (2019)

Trivia

  • Completed a compulsory year of service in the People's Liberation Army in 1991.
  • Writes exclusively in English.
  • Mother of two sons (Vincent and James); both died (Vincent in 2017 by suicide, James in 2024 in an incident ruled a suicide).