Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li | To Remember in America When I was at nursery school in Beijing in the 1970s, there was a teacher who seemed to find tireless pleasure in...

‘A friend in London talks about the mystifying phrase she keeps hearing these days: “This is not America, this is not who we are.” But this is America, this is life, and this is how human beings behave. American exceptionalism will not save us.’

Yiyun Li on the blog.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Durst Distinguished Lectures Durst Distinguished Lectures in the School of Humanities at Purchase College State University of New York

Another exciting lineup for the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series this spring at Purchase College: Kiran Desai, Yiyun Li, and Emil Ferris.

Free, open to the public, and not too far from the city!

www.purchase.edu/academics/sc...

We are honored to announce the 2026 #ALA_Carnegie winners:

🥇#Nonfiction: Yiyun Li, THINGS IN NATURE MERLY GROW

🥇#Fiction: Megha Majumdar, A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF

Congratulations to our winners and publishers, @macmillanlib.bsky.social and @prhlibrary.bsky.social🎉

Read more: https://bit.ly/46gpBfU

A Talent for Living | Yiyun Li In Beryl Bainbridge’s novels, to die is an awfully big adventure—and so is to live.

“A recurrent subject for Beryl Bainbridge in her novels…is how much more fully and intensely children live in the world they create in their own minds than in the world outside.” —Yiyun Li

‘Cancel’ comes from a Latin word meaning “to make like a lattice.”

When people needed to annul or void a document, they sometimes would mark it with crosshatches

XXXXX

which resembled a lattice.

So the document became ‘canceled.’

...we hope this post doesn’t get us that.

A Talent for Living | Yiyun Li In Beryl Bainbridge’s novels, to die is an awfully big adventure—and so is to live.

Yiyun Li on child’s play in Beryl Bainbridge’s An Awfully Big Adventure https://go.nybooks.com/3MTgRWy

Thank you 🙏

In an essay drawn from her critically acclaimed book “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” Yiyun Li writes about the loss of her sons, and the type of sorrow for which there is no language. Read her account: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/cwGt5m

The Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2025 It’s time to crown some nonfiction. We, the dogged review sleuths at Book Marks, have spent the past 12 months ferreting out raves, pans, and everything in between from more than 150 publications. …

Titles by Miriam Toews, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Yiyun Li, and more are among the best reviewed nonfiction books of 2025.

national book critics circle 2025 LONGLIST AUTOBIOGRAPHY Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday) The Broken King, by Michael Thomas (Grove) I'II Tell You When I'm Home, by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press) Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) Mother Mary Comes to Me, by Arundhati Roy (Scribner) Paper Girl, by Beth Macy (Penguin) Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi (Ecco) Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) A Truce That Is Not Peace, by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury) Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography, by Hester Kaplan (Catapult)

national book critics circle 2025 LONGLIST AUTOBIOGRAPHY Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday) The Broken King, by Michael Thomas (Grove) I'II Tell You When I'm Home, by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press) Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) Mother Mary Comes to Me, by Arundhati Roy (Scribner) Paper Girl, by Beth Macy (Penguin) Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi (Ecco) Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) A Truce That Is Not Peace, by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury) Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography, by Hester Kaplan (Catapult)

Announcing the National Book Critics Circle 2025 Longlist for Autobiography

A Long Game From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing. Writing can feel like an endle...

I try not to know the sales numbers of my own books or others, but it appears that my book on writing has this week outsold Olivia Nuzzi's book on activities that she enjoys (including, I presume, writing). Not vastly outsold, so I have included a link.

www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...

A collage of book covers. A headline reads: "The New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2025."

It’s here: Our list of 100 Notable Books of 2025. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/b...

THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW by Yiyun Li has been named a 2026 Carnegie Medals for Nonfiction finalist! 👉📚 tinyurl.com/wuxm3rdh

Twenty Questions with Yiyun Li

Do your ideas form themselves in your head or on the page? ‘On the page. Ideas in one’s head are like beautiful fish in the water.’

Twenty Questions with Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li Named Princeton University’s Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities Creative writing professor Yiyun Li has been named the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University.

Princeton's Yiyun Li (@appletwigli.bsky.social) has been named Princeton University’s Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, an appointment first held by Professor of Creative Writing, Emerita, Toni Morrison.

BOOK - Duel Duet: Selected Stories by Graham Greene, edited by Yiyun Li

4. BOOK - Duel Duet: Selected Stories by Graham Greene, edited by @appletwigli.bsky.social

‘This ingenious collection places Greene’s stories in pairs – to be read, as the title suggests, not merely in conversation, but also in opposition and in concert’

2025 National Book Awards Finalists Announced Twenty-five Finalists to contend for National Book Awards in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature

Congratulations to Princeton professors @poetpatriciasmith.bsky.social and @appletwigli.bsky.social and alumna @juliaioffe.bsky.social '05 who were named finalists for National Book Awards this week.

Evergreen!

“The adjectives which really suited grown-ups were ‘lily-livered’ and ‘chicken-hearted.’"
--Mary in Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows (more recently encountered by me in @appletwigli.bsky.social's story "Any Human Heart")

♥️💚

Yiyun Li keert zich tegen het idee van rouw. Ze schrijft over de dood van haar twee zonen om ze bij zich te houden Yiyun Li verloor eerst haar oudste zoon, en daarna haar jongste. Ook zelf kende ze perioden van suïcidale depressie. De wereld van taal – van schrijven, denken, lezen – geeft haar vaste grond onder de...

In @groene.nl - Yiyun Li 💚
@appletwigli.bsky.social @4thestatebooks.bsky.social #nieuwamsterdam

“Two moments in Graham Greene’s published life have often returned to me in the past twenty years. This may sound strange: an ideal reader should refrain from crossing the boundary between a writer’s work and his life.”

Yiyun Li on Graham Greene. buff.ly/M9gqQF9

Not to mention the ancient practice of fitting a crank and turning to open a car window!

"The humanities tell us who we are. Without them, we're automata." Edward Carey, Celsius 232 Festival, Avilés, Spain.

Yiyun Li’s Latest Memoir Illuminates My Responsibilities and Limitations as a Parent - Electric Literature As the mother of a trans child and the daughter of a man who died by suicide, “Things in Nature Merely Grow” pulled me in like a black hole

Reading Yiyun Li’s latest memoir “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” Ali Moss reflects on her responsibilities and limitations as a parent.

electricliterature.com/yiyun-lis-la...

“There is no redemption arc in ‘Things in Nature Merely Grow,’ no arrival at a deeper meaning of life after the tragedies of Vincent and James’s suicides.” Jenessa Abrams reviews Yiyun Li’s "Things in Nature Merely Grow." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/children-die-and-parents-go-on-living/

“Fortunately, fiction allows one the space to complicate matters and dispel the innocence of any image.” Yiyun Li discusses her short story “Any Human Heart.”

“Any Human Heart,” by Yiyun Li And here sat Maureen, who had no one else to send flowers to as sweet revenge. And here sat Lilian, who had thought that little in life could surprise her anymore.

“And here sat Maureen, who had no one else to send flowers to as sweet revenge. And here sat Lilian, who had thought that little in life could surprise her anymore.” Read a new short story by Yiyun Li.

“Not calling a fact by its name can be the beginning of cruelty and injustice.” —Yiyun Li #SundaySentence

Yiyun Li Remembers Edmund White The writer remembers an unlikely but laughter-filled friendship.

Lovely essay in memory of Edmund White by @appletwigli.bsky.social

yalereview.org/article/yiyu...