Yiyun Li

"Lilia Liska has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children, and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to the diary of a man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had an affair--the man who was the father of her daughter Lucy. Lilia tells her rather different version of events revealing the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. And she returns inexorably to her daughter, Lucy, who took...

A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li. Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two...

"A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she's lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In the stories of Wednesday's Child, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces--death, violence, estrangement--come...

As morning dawns on the provincial city of Muddy River, a spirited young woman, Gu Shan, once a devoted follower of Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in Communism. Now a political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissent. While Gu Shan's distraught mother makes bold decisions, her father begins to retreat into memories. Neither of them imagines that their daughter's death will have profound and far-reaching effects.

"You know how, very occasionally in your life, there's a 'before and after' reading experience? Well, reading with has been that for me--Michael Langan From the acclaimed author of , a book about the art of reading. Yiyun Li invites you to travel with her through Tolstoy's novel--and with fellow readers around the world who joined her for an online book club and an epic journey during a pandemic year. "I've found that the more uncertain life is,"...

An extraordinary portrait of a brilliant mind on the brink: A new edition of the 1974 memoir by the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. With an introduction by Yiyun Li. "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life could begin....

Thoughtful and affirming, this collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone illuminates an experience that is rarely openly discussed.

The story follows Fei, a retired art teacher and lifelong bachelor. When Fei reads a blog accusing a man of an indiscretion, Fei seeks out the man to share information about his own past.

A thousand years of good prayers: A woman in her early 40s moves from China to America to start a new life. Her father comes to visit her because of her recent divorce. Their social and generational conflicts end up revealing the darker lies and cover-ups within her family during the Cultural Revolution. The princess of Nebraska: A China-born 18-year-old finds herself four months pregnant. She interrupts her studies to travel from Nebraska to San...

A fresh new translation of Michel de Montaignes most profound, searching essays, with an introduction from Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose. This gift-worthy collection of 16 essays by the father of the essay is a short, accessible introduction to his work, offering a fascinating glimpse inside a great Renaissance mind. I myself am the subject of my book. So wrote Montaigne in the introductory note to his Essays, the book that marked the birth...