Yiyun Li

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.

Li had a breakdown in 2012 and attempted suicide twice.[12][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."[12] Her experiences with depression resulted in her 2017 memoir Dear Friend.[12] 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.[13][14]

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.[15]

Li has received several notable fellowships, including the Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, Texas; a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (2010),[16][17] and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2020).[18]

In 2007, Granta named Li in their list of the 21 best young American novelists.[19] 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,[20] and in 2013, she judged the Man Booker International Prize.[21]

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,[22][23][24] and in 2022, she won the PEN/Malamud Award, which "recognizes writers who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short story form."[25][26]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Yiyun Li.

• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• "The Rumpus Interview with Yiyun Li", January 14, 2009
• January 2009 interview with Yiyun Li
• "Executioner Songs", The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 30, 2009
• "Interviews: Yiyun Li", Identity Theory
• Articles by Yuyun Li on her UK publisher's blog, 5th Estate
• Yiyun Li speaks about Gold Boy, Emerald Girl on KRUI's The Lit Show
• Video: The Story Prize reading with Anthony Doerr and Suzanne Rivecca. March 2, 2011.