"Sweeping Past" by Yiyun Li (August, 2007, in The Guardian)

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for Dublin IMPAC Award. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, her second collection, was a finalist of Story Prize and shortlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Kinder Than Solitude, her latest novel, was published to critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Yiyun Li has received numerous awards, including Whiting Award, Lannan Foundation Residency fellow, 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, among others. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She has served on the jury panel for Man Booker International Prize, National Book Award, PEN/Heminway Award, and other. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space.

She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.  from yiyunli.com

My Posts on Yiyun Li

"Sweeping Past" on The Guardian




Yiyun Li is one of my favorite contemporary writers.  I have posted on both of her novels and her profound memoir Dear Friend I Write From My Life to Yours as well as several of her beautifully crafted short stories.

My main purposes today are to journalize my reading of "Sweeping Past" and to let anyone interested know that the story can be read online on the webpage of The Guardian.

"Sweeping Past", set in China, is a fifty year look back on the lives of three girls who became "sworn sisters".  The practice was looked down upon as feudal in Maoist China.  The times were to turn ugly as a hatred for anything that seemed "western" or capitalistic became despised.

The women are now in their early sixties.  China has largely become a capitalist country.  A granddaughter of one of the women, her parents emigrated to Portugal long ago and own a very prosperous Chinese restaurant, is back in China for a two week vacation.  She learns much about the family history of the girls, a grandson of one raped and murdered the daughter of another, not wanting to wait for their intended marriage for sex.  He was executed.

I don't want to tell more of the story.  You can read it in ten minutes or so.  Li is a master at the depiction of the passing sweep of time.

Mel u

Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li (2016)

Yiyun Li on The Reading Life

Yiyun Li is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I have read and posted on her novels, The Vagrants and Kinder Than Solitude and several of her wonderful short stories.  I was honored to be given a review copy of her latest book, a collection of essays centering on the central place of reading in her life.  One of the greatest values of the reading life is  it can give you a reason to keep going when life seems pointless.  On the deepest level Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life can be  seen as a reflection on how her love of reading kept her from committing suicide.  One of her most loved authors, William Trevor, with whom she has visited, just died recently and I know how sad this must have made Yiyun Li.  She also, as do many writers, greatly admires Katherine Mansfield.  She talks about her memories of her trip to Ireland.There is a very powerful chapter on suicide as a public act.  She speaks elegantly about the challenges in writing in English versus her birth language Chinese.

Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a profound work on the reading life, deeply felt.  It includes  a very interesting list of books mentioned.

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for Dublin IMPAC Award. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, her second collection, was a finalist of Story Prize and shortlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Kinder Than Solitude, her latest novel, was published to critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Yiyun Li has received numerous awards, including Whiting Award, Lannan Foundation Residency fellow, 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, among others. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She has served on the jury panel for Man Booker International Prize, National Book Award, PEN/Heminway Award, and other. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space.

She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.  from yiyunli.com

Mel u

"Love in the Market Place" by Yiyun Li (2005, from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, 2005 Frank O'Connor Prize Winner)

Official bio from author's web page

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from Lannan Foundation and Whiting Foundation. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction; it was also shortlisted for Kiriyama Prize and Orange Prize for New Writers. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. MacArthur Foundation named her a 2010 fellow. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

If you want to read stories by the very best contemporary writers, one decent idea  is  Frank O'Connor International Short Story winners works.  Yiyun Li won  in 2005 for her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.   I have previously posted on her superb novel The Vagrants and some of her short stories, all set either in contemporary China or related settings.  

"Love in the Market Place" is set in Beijing.  It centers on a female school teacher.  She loves the movie Casablanca and plays it for every class.   I love that movie also and I liked the teacher once I read that. She thinks the movie has strong ethical lessons to teach about keeping your promises.  Ten years ago she was jilted by a man who ended up moving to America with another woman.   She is completely single.   I liked her even more when I learned her only real comfort in life were a small collection of classic novels,  "works one could spend a life time studying", she bought in college.  Her mother makes hard boiled eggs and sells them in a train station, she has been doing this for forty years.  She prides her self on the care she takes to make the very best of hard boiled eggs.  Her daughter tells her why bother no one will take notice.   Her mother has big news for her.  The man who jilted her ten years ago is now divorced and is back in town.  Her mother pushes her to throw her self at the man.  She resists.  The conversations between mother and daughter are brilliant.  

The ending is remarkable, for some strange reason it made me think of Kafka's "The Hunger Artist".  The ending perplexed and disturbed me as I struggled to take it in.  This is a great short story.  I will post on more of her work, I hope.  

"A Man Like Him" by Yiyun Li (A Short Story by the Winner of the 2005 Frank O'Connor Prize, from Golden Boy, Emerald Girl: Stories)

My Posts on  Yiyun Li

I was very happy to find included in a D R C, New American Short Stories, I was recently given a story by one of my favorite writers, Yiyun Li.  I have previously read both of her novels and several of her wonderful short stories.  

"A Man Like Him", set in Maoist era China, centers on a forty six year old male teacher, never married, who lives with his very elderly mother, caring for her.  Twenty five years ago his father was a high level professor of philosophy.  For expressing criticism of the government, he was reassigned as a trash collector for some twenty years.   He lives in an environment in which you have to be very careful who you trust.  Long ago the teacher was accused of looking in a sexual way at his young female students.

The beauty of the story is in the great sadness conveyed in the subdued prose of Li, in the relationships stifled by the miasma of distrust.

I have a few more stories by Yiyun Li in anthologies I have been given and hope to read them soon.

Yiyun Li is the author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, and Kinder Than Solitude. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, and the Guardian First Book Award, among others. Granta named her one of the best American novelists under thirty-five, and The New Yorker named her one of twenty American writers under forty to watch. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at the University of California, Davis.

Mel u

"A Sheltered Woman" by Yiyun Li (March 10, 2014)

A Short Story by the 2005 Frank O'Connor Prize Winner

Anytime I am presented with the opportunity to read a short story by Yiyun Li, winner of the Frank O'Connor Prize in 2005, I am pleased.  Prior to this I have read both of her novels and several of her always excellent short stories.

"A Sheltered Woman", long listed for The London Times short story of the year prize for 2015, the richest single story award, set in Shanghai, centers on a woman who makes her living taking care of mothers and babies for the first month after birth.  She lives with the families.  She has had numerous offers to work permanently but she does not want to become emotionally involved with the family or caught up in any drama.  

My main purpose here is to journalise my reading of this story and to let my readers know they can read this story online.  I really enjoyed it and will keep on reading stories by Yiyun Li when I can

The story can be read here

Biography from the Author's webpage

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for Dublin IMPAC Award. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, her second collection, was a finalist of Story Prize and shortlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Kinder Than Solitude, her latest novel, was published to critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Yiyun Li has received numerous awards, including Whiting Award, Lannan Foundation Residency fellow, 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, and 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space.

Mel u

"After a Life" by Yiyun Li (2005)

A short story by the Winner of 2005 Frank O'Connor Prize

My Posts on Yiyun Li

I have read both of Yiyun Li's novels and several of her short stories.  Most of her fiction focuses on life in China or on recent Chinese immigrants to America.  

"After a Life" centers on two middle aged married couples in living in China.  The time is not specified but it is shortly after the Chinese stock market open and in the words of one of the characters, "The Chinese went money mad". Some  older  Chinese see this as a betrayal of the teachings of Mao.

One of the two couples have two children, one is a severly learning disabled and deformed daughter of twenty five.  When she was born the attending physician recommended she be euthanatized and kept in a jar for teaching purposes.  Care for her dominates their life.  They also have a ten year old son.  They have always kept pretty much to themselves but now the husband is retired and he has taken to going to a stock brokerage house for something to do.  He has struck up a friendship with another man.  The other man's wife is scheduled to get out of prison, doing seven years for corruption, but her husband has found another woman.  Once the woman gets out she takes to calling the wife of the first man as when her husband goes out he tells his wife he is with her husband.  Things get complicated from this point and I will leave the rest of the very well plotted story untold.  

I read this story in this very high value anthology 

From author's web page.

Biography

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for Dublin IMPAC Award. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, her second collection, was a finalist of Story Prize and shortlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Kinder Than Solitude, her latest novel, was published to critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Yiyun Li has received numerous awards, including Whiting Award, Lannan Foundation Residency fellow, 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, and 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space.

She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

"Alone" by Yiyun Li (November 16, 2009, from The New Yorker) -A Short Story by the Winner of the 2005 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize

My Posts on Yiyun Li

If one day you are looking for quality new to you short stories one very good place to start is by looking in the archives of The New Yorker for works by winners of the annual Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. I was happy to find some stories by Yiyun Li in the archives.  Yiyun Li won in 2005 for her debut collection of stories A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.  I have previously read and posted on several of her short stories and one of her novels, Vagrants.  I also read but did not post on Kinder Than Solitude.  Most of her work is either set in China or deals with experiences

 of Chinese born  immigrants to America.  A deep sense of sadness and aloneness permeates her work, a sense you will never really be understood.  

My main purpose in this post is to journalise my reading of the story and to let others  know it can be read in the archives of The New Yorker for a little while.

The story centers on a woman originally from Bejing now living in the American Pacific Northwest.  Her husband of sixteen years, now back in Bejing, has filed for a divorce and she recently returned the papers. She is on a road trip alone to Vancouver, a forest fire is threatening towns.  She thinks now her husband can go to hostess bars in Bejings with his clients and not feel guilty.  She cannot escape a terrible tragedy she experienced at age twelve.  I just cannot reveal this as it would spoil the experience of first time readers.  It will make you ponder how having such an event, kept secret for decades, even from her husband, impacted her consciousness.  As the father of teenage girls, it made me think very hard to try to understand the tragedy. 

This is a suberbly told story.  I will be reading all of the Yiyun Li stories in the archives.

You can read the story here

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/16/alone-8

From author's webpage

Biography

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for Dublin IMPAC Award. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, her second collection, was a finalist of Story Prize and shortlisted for Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Kinder Than Solitude, her latest novel, was published to critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Yiyun Li has received numerous awards, including Whiting Award, Lannan Foundation Residency fellow, 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, and 2014 Benjamin H. Danks Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space.

She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

 

"The Science of Flight" by Yiyun Li (2010)

Yiyun Li is a wonderful, highly successful writer.  I have previously posted on her novel The Vagrants and one of her short stories.  This morning I read her very excellent short story in the anthology 20 Under 40:  Stories from The New Yorker, "The Science of Flight" centering on the life of a woman from China who has been living in the USA for many years, divorced and working in a lab that does experiments on animals.   Her mother disgraced the family by having her without being married.  She was abandoned by both parents and raised by her widowed grandmother.   She is close to two men who work in the lab, as friends only, and every year she goes back to China and she falsely tells them it is to visit her parents.   She married a man she met only twice as he was going to America and would take her along.  He was to pursue a phd in mathematics.   They divorced after two years.  Everything about the woman's life is considered in her culture a failure, she illegitimate, marriage ended childless in divorce and she has a job way below her intellect. She hides from her coworkers her ability to read Latin.  Li really takes us deeply into the mind of the woman.  The prose is elegant.  I hope to read more of her work.

Official biography

Biography

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from Lannan Foundation and Whiting Foundation. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction; it was also shortlisted for Kiriyama Prize and Orange Prize for New Writers. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. MacArthur Foundation named her a 2010 fellow. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (2009, 537 KB)

The Vagrants is Yiyun Li's first novel and is a great debut work.   Prior to this she published two highly regarded collections of short stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl.   (I have previously posted on two short stories from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers which won the 2005 Frank O'Connor Prize for best collection of short stories, so she does have an Irish connection!).

During the duration of  The Irish Corner:  A Celebrations of Irish Short Stories (March 11 to July 1)  I am still reading some works not directly related to the event and will post briefly  on them upon completion.

The Vagrants is set in Communist China in the middle 1970s, just as Beijing begins to experience wide spread protests against Maoist doctrines.   It was a time in which everyone was in danger of being denounced as a proponent of prohibited ideas and suffer terrible punishment.   The novel centers on the lives of very ordinary people trying to survive.   Two of the central figures are an elderly couple whose daughter is schedule for and ends up being publicly executed as a counter revolutionary after many years in prison.   It was very sad   to see that the parents are afraid to even morn for their daughter and they fight over what caused her to go down this path.  In a terrible scene, it appears that just before she was executed, she was operated on to remove salable organs.  It is hard to fathom the mentality of a doctor that would do that and I wonder if this was a common practice and maybe is still some in parts of the world.

The Vagrants is a beautifully written novel that is not just about China in the 1970s, it is about what happens when people have no power over their own lives, can barely survive and can trust no one.  I highly recommend  it.


Mel u