Yiyun Li's writing delves into the intricate tapestry of human experience, exploring themes of displacement, memory, and the search for belonging with profound emotional depth. Her prose is characterized by its quiet power and meticulous observation, drawing readers into the inner lives of her characters. Li masterfully navigates the complexities of cultural identity and the enduring impact of the past on the present. Her work offers a poignant and insightful perspective on the universal struggles of connection and understanding.
V povídkovém souboru Tisíc let vroucích modliteb se spisovatelka soustředí na osobní dramata obyčejných lidí, politická realita totalitního režimu zůstává jakoby v pozadí... Mnohem podstatnější roli zde hrají rodinné vztahy, emocionální vazby a generační střety. Podařilo se jí zachytit pro nás těžko pochopitelný svět moderní čínské kultury. Povídky tak nabízejí osobitý pohled na současný život v Číně i čínských emigrantů v USA, podaný s nevšední silou a virtuozitou.
Román americké autorky čínského původu se odehrává v rozmezí několika málo dnů na jaře roku 1979, během nichž v provinčním čínském městě v sobě najde několik stovek obyvatel občanskou odvahu vyjádřit veřejně protest proti politickému procesu, v němž byla po desetiletém věznění odsouzena k trestu smrti mladá žena. Příběh napsaný na motivy skutečných událostí z období takzvaného Pekingského jara zaujme propracovanou stavbou, důvěrnou znalostí prostředí a uměním zprostředkovat západnímu čtenáři kulturně odlišný myšlenkový svět.
The oldest written story on Earth, retold for children
'Any new book by Yiyun Li is a cause for celebration' Sigrid Nunez 'One of our finest living authors' New York Times
'One of our finest living authors ... propulsively entertaining' New York Times 'Sly, profound ... Electrifying' Observer 'Wonderfully strange and alive' Jon McGregor
'Days- the easiest possession. The days he had refused would come, one at a time. They would wait, every daybreak, with their boundless patience and indifference, seeing if they could turn me into an ally or an enemy to myself.' A woman's teenage son takes his own life. It is incomprehensible. The woman is a writer, and so she attempts to comprehend her grief in the space she knows best- on the page, as an imagined conversation with the child she has lost. He is as sharp and funny and serious in death as he was in life, and he will speak back to her, unable to offer explanation or solace, but not yet, not quite, gone. Taking the form of a dialogue between mother and son, Where Reasons End is an extraordinary portrait of parenthood, in all its painful contradictions of joy, humour and sorrow, and of what it is to lose a child.
"Yiyun Li's searing personal story of hospitalizations for depression and thoughts of suicide is interlaced with reflections on the solace and affirmations of life and personhood that Li found in reading the journals, diaries, and fiction of other writers: William Trevor, Katherine Mansfield, and more"-- Provided by publisher
Lilia Liska is eighty-one. She has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children and seen the birth of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to a strange little book published by a vanity press- the diary of a long-forgotten man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had a fleeting affair. Drawn into an obsession over this fragment of intimate history, Lilia begins to annotate the diary with her own, rather different version of events. Gradually she undercuts Roland's charming but arrogant voice with her sharply incisive and deeply moving commentary. She reveals to us the surprising, long-held secrets of her own life. And she returns inexorably to her daughter, Lucy, who took her own life at the age of twenty-seven. How does the past shape the future? How do we live in the face of the unanswerable? Must I Go considers these questions underlying an extraordinary life, exploring both the painfully finite nature of human life and the infinite depths of human beings.
A reader's companion for Tolstoy's epic novel, War and Peace, inspired by the online book club led by Yiyun Li. For the writer Yiyun Li, whenever life has felt uncertain, War and Peace has been the novel she turns to. In March 2020, as the pandemic tightened its grip, Li and A Public Space launched #TolstoyTogether, a War and Peace book club, on Twitter and Instagram, gathering a community (that came to include writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Garth Greenwell, and Carl Phillips) for 85 days of prompts, conversation, succor, and pleasure. It was an experience shaped not only by the time in which they read but also the slow, consistent rhythm of the reading. And the extraordinary community that gathered for a moment each day to discuss Tolstoy, history, and the role of art in a time like this. Tolstoy Together captures that moment, and offers a guided, communal experience for past and new readers, lovers of Russian literature, and all those looking for what Li identifies as "his level-headedness and clear-sightedness offer[ing] a solidity during a time of duress.