Sunday, September 18, 2005
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Today's San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle both have glowing reviews for Yiyun Li's new short story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. Writing in the Chronicle, Alan Cheuse notes:
Yiyun recently moved from here in Iowa City -- I know, I know, a writer living in Iowa City, you're shocked -- and she's now in Oakland, teaching over at Mills College. Not many of her pieces are online right now, but you can see glimpse into some of her recent stories from the New Yorker and The Paris Review over at Yiyun's website... and some fine stories they are, too.
American readers can now celebrate that one of the best new fiction writers of the year learned English as a second language. Even when you employ the highest standard, which is to say, the Nabokovian standard, you have to admit that her book seems to be an extraordinary feat of intelligence and style.
Yiyun recently moved from here in Iowa City -- I know, I know, a writer living in Iowa City, you're shocked -- and she's now in Oakland, teaching over at Mills College. Not many of her pieces are online right now, but you can see glimpse into some of her recent stories from the New Yorker and The Paris Review over at Yiyun's website... and some fine stories they are, too.
