Photo: Librairie Mollat / CC BY 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Yiyun Li

イーユン・リー　/　いーゆん・りー

Writer from People's Republic of China

November 4, 1972 (age 53)　・　Beijing, People's Republic of China

writer
screenwriter
university teacher

My Take

Yiyun Li astonishes me for one reason above all: she writes exclusively in English, her second language, and does it at a level that's won the PEN/Hemingway and Guardian First Book Awards, the MacArthur 'genius' grant, and the PEN/Faulkner. Coming from a science background, leaving Beijing and Peking University for America, then mastering English well enough to map the human interior, that's an act of will I can barely fathom. Choosing to render the deepest emotions in a borrowed tongue suggests extraordinary discipline and quiet steel. I haven't read every book of hers, but the scale of that achievement leaves me genuinely in awe.

Overview

Yiyun Li (simplified Chinese: 李翊云; traditional Chinese: 李翊雲; pinyin: Lǐ Yìyún) (born November 4, 1972) is a Chinese-born writer. She writes exclusively in English. 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, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fictio…

Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1. Profile

Name (English): Yiyun Li
Name (Japanese): イーユン・リー
Reading: いーゆん・りー
Born: November 4, 1972 (age 53)
Zodiac / Chinese zodiac: Scorpio / Rat
Origin: Beijing, People's Republic of China
Blood type: Private
Height: Private
Agency: Private
Occupation: writer / screenwriter / university teacher / journalist / novelist

2. Background

Elementary school: Private
Junior high: Private
High school: Private
University: Peking University

Awards & achievements

2010 MacArthur Fellows Program
2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
2006 Guardian First Book Award
2012 O. Henry Award
2011 Asian American Literary Awards
2020 Guggenheim Fellowship
2022 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2003 Plimpton Prize

3. Relationships

Spouse: Private
Children: Private
Parents: Private
Siblings: Private

4. Personality

Motto

Private

5. Works & records

Category	Title	Role
Notable work	The Vagrants	—
Notable work	A Thousand Years of Good Prayers	—
Notable work	Kinder Than Solitude	—

6. Links

Official sitehttp://www.yiyunli.com/
Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC

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