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Yiyun Li

@appletwigli.bsky.social
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Reposted by Yiyun Li
The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 22/09/2026
Our critics and editors share the books they’re looking forward to reading in the fall: ambitious, generational novels, tell-all memoirs, and cultural histories. See the full list, featuring titles by Min Jin Lee, Yiyun Li, Simon Sebag Montefiore, and more: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/d0-KxI
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Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"It’s like *War and Peace* without the war." @appletwigli.bsky.social on *Fortress Besieged* for @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
nybooks.com
Life in the Fortress | Yiyun Li
I first read Fortress Besieged as a teenager, when the novel, originally published in 1947 and out of print for decades, became a bestseller in China
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 25/08/2026
Yiyun Li on Qian Zhongshu’s satirical masterpiece, Fortress Besieged
nybooks.com
Life in the Fortress | Yiyun Li
I first read Fortress Besieged as a teenager, when the novel, originally published in 1947 and out of print for decades, became a bestseller in China
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 22/08/2026
From Booker-listed Marlon James to a memoir by Michael Douglas – the biggest books this autumn
theguardian.com
From Booker-listed Marlon James to a memoir by Michael Douglas – the biggest books this autumn
Midlife meditations from Barbara Kingsolver; musical portraits by Jonathan Coe and Yiyun Li; plus memoirs from Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench – all among the coming season’s highlights
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Nieman Lab @niemanlab.org · 21/08/2026
“Facts are the harshest and the hardest part of life.” @niemanstoryboard.org niemanstoryboard.org/2026/08/20/a...
niemanstoryboard.org
Annotation: Yiyun Li reconsiders the language of loss in her Pulitzer-winning memoir, ‘Things in Nature Merely Grow’ - Nieman Storyboard
The acclaimed author discusses how words like “grief” fail when writing about the loss of her teenage son James
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Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
On March 18, come see Yiyun Li (@appletwigli.bsky.social) at Purchase College as part of the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series! Free and open to the public. www.purchase.edu/calendar/eve...
purchase.edu
Yiyun Li in Conversation with Prof. Anthony Domestico
Yiyun Li is the author of twelve books, including the novel The Book of Goose (2022), winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; the story colle...
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Boston College @bostoncollege.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
On Wednesday, the Lowell Humanities Series welcomes author Yiyun Li to BC. The author of 11 books, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and winner of many awards, Li is a Princeton professor and the Creative Writing Program Director. Learn More & Register: on.bc.edu/YLI_LHS
This image is a promotional poster for the Lowell Humanities Series featuring Yiyun Li. It includes a portrait of Yiyun Li on the left with a beige background, and text on the right detailing the event: "Techniques and Idiosyncrasies." The event is on February 25, 2026, at 7 PM, in Gasson 100. cosponsored by the Boston College Fiction Days Series and Asian American Studies Program. The Boston College logo is at the top right.
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 06/02/2026
‘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...
lrb.co.uk
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...
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Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
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...
purchase.edu
Durst Distinguished Lectures
Durst Distinguished Lectures in the School of Humanities at Purchase College State University of New York
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American Library Association @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
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: bit.ly/46gpBfU
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 06/01/2026
“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
nybooks.com
A Talent for Living | Yiyun Li
In Beryl Bainbridge’s novels, to die is an awfully big adventure—and so is to live.
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 02/01/2026
‘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.
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 01/01/2026
Yiyun Li on child’s play in Beryl Bainbridge’s An Awfully Big Adventure go.nybooks.com/3MTgRWy
nybooks.com
A Talent for Living | Yiyun Li
In Beryl Bainbridge’s novels, to die is an awfully big adventure—and so is to live.
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 27/12/2025
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
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Titles by Miriam Toews, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Yiyun Li, and more are among the best reviewed nonfiction books of 2025.
buff.ly
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. …
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National Book Critics Circle @bookcritics.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Announcing the National Book Critics Circle 2025 Longlist for Autobiography
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)
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Elizabeth McCracken @elizmccrack.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
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...
harpercollins.com
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...
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 28/11/2025
It’s here: Our list of 100 Notable Books of 2025. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/b...
A collage of book covers. A headline reads: "The New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2025."
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Macmillan Library @macmillanlib.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW by Yiyun Li has been named a 2026 Carnegie Medals for Nonfiction finalist! 👉📚 tinyurl.com/wuxm3rdh
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The TLS @thetls.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
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
the-tls.com
Twenty Questions with Yiyun Li
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Princeton University @princeton.edu · 30/10/2025
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.
arts.princeton.edu
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.
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THE NERVE @thenerve.news · 17/10/2025
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’
BOOK - Duel Duet: Selected Stories by Graham Greene, edited by Yiyun Li
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Princeton University @princeton.edu · 08/10/2025
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.
nationalbook.org
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
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Elise Blackwell @eliseblackwell.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
“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")
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The Paris Review @parisreview.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
“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
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Elizabeth McCracken @elizmccrack.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
"The humanities tell us who we are. Without them, we're automata." Edward Carey, Celsius 232 Festival, Avilés, Spain.
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Electric Literature @electricliterature.com · 08/07/2025
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...
electricliterature.com
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
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
“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." lareviewofbooks.org/article/childre…
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 15/06/2025
“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.”
newyorker.com
Yiyun Li on Dispelling Innocence and Dissecting Pears
The author discusses her story “Any Human Heart.”
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 15/06/2025
“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.
newyorker.com
“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.
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Elise Blackwell @eliseblackwell.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
“Not calling a fact by its name can be the beginning of cruelty and injustice.” —Yiyun Li #SundaySentence
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Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Lovely essay in memory of Edmund White by @appletwigli.bsky.social yalereview.org/article/yiyu...
yalereview.org
Yiyun Li Remembers Edmund White
The writer remembers an unlikely but laughter-filled friendship.
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The Yale Review @yalereview.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
“We both took pleasure in being irrelevant and irreverent and unflappable.” Today in TYR, Yiyun Li pays tribute to her friend, the late Edmund White.
yalereview.org
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Courtney Tenz @courtneytenz.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
The latest book by @appletwigli.bsky.social absolutely devastated me with its beauty and grace so I wrote about it for @washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...
washingtonpost.com
Review | A mother pays tribute to the sons she lost
In her memoir “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” Yiyun Li tries to honor the lives, and accept the unfathomable deaths, of her two sons.
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Yiyun Li @appletwigli.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Farewell my love
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Barbara J. King @bjking.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
From @appletwigli.bsky.social 's story collection Wednesday's Child: Perhaps grief was the recognition of having run out of illusions. #SundaySentence #Booksky
The cover features a painting from 1870 of a white poodle, a gold pear shape seen partially, and a note that the book was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.
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Barbara J. King @bjking.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
I just finished Things in Nature Merely Grow by @appletwigli.bsky.social and am disrupted, moved, challenged in ways I did not expect. I write a lot about grief and..... will be carrying this magnificent book and its refusal of grief inside me for a long time ahead. #Booksky
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Orion Magazine @orionmagazine.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
“I’ve been on this crusade against metaphor for years,” Yiyun Li tells Manjula Martin in this conversation. “I think metaphors are not helpful when you are writing about things that are very hard to tackle.” For garden lovers, metaphor haters, and those learning to accept grief.
orionmagazine.org
Sometimes a Rose Is Just a Rose
A conversation about gardening, loss, and the end of metaphor
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R. O. Kwon 권오경 @rokwon.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
uncommon grace, yes 💚 thank you @appletwigli.bsky.social for writing Things in Nature Merely Grow, which will be out Tuesday
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
This. Again and again. No one has written the heart like @appletwigli.bsky.social— her words are foundational for me, as a writer, a human, and a mother. Always.
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Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 16/05/2025
All the love to @appletwigli.bsky.social, who has written a book of staggering heartbreak and uncommon grace.
nytimes.com
‘I Don’t Ever Want to Be Free From the Pain of Missing My Children’
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Harper’s Magazine @harpers.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Dan Piepenbring reviews Yiyun Li’s memoir Things in Nature Merely Grow. buff.ly/DuBkCC5
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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 10/04/2025
"When mass protests broke out against his policy, Biden repeatedly condemned the activists as violent and antisemitic, responding to outlier actions that didn’t represent the movement. Biden’s slander helped splinter the Democratic coalition, giving Trump a potent wedge issue." shorturl.at/K4cPI
thenation.com
The New McCarthyism Was Started by Liberals
As with earlier Red Scares, Democrats laid the groundwork for the current crackdown on dissent.
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Michael Luo @michaelluo.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Not often that you get to spend an hour talking about a story you worked on. Thanks to Radiowest on @kuer.org. radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowe...
radiowest.kuer.org
Why a Massacre of Chinese Miners 140 Years Ago Still Matters
On September 2, 1885, tragedy struck the coal-mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming, when white coal workers brutally attacked and murdered Chinese immigrants brought in to work the mines.
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Sinéad Gleeson @sineadgleeson.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Floored by Yiyun Li’s excavation of time, bereavement, the inadequacy of language around death, and how to live after unimaginable things happen. Things in Nature Merely Grow is out in May. www.4thestate.co.uk/products/thi...
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The Sunday Long Read @thesundaylongread.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
"This personal history by @appletwigli.bsky.social left me in pieces. She writes in spare, unadorned prose and opens with an almost clinical study of the words delivered by a police officer: 'There is no good way to say this.'" -Guest editor @michaelluo.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
newyorker.com
The Deaths—and Lives—of Two Sons
The truth is that however I choose to express myself will not live up to the weight of these facts: Vincent died, and then James died.
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Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 24/03/2025
Yiyun Li’s new book — from which this essay is excerpted — is one of the most beautifully controlled expressions of grief and anger and abyss I’ve ever read.
newyorker.com
The Deaths—and Lives—of Two Sons
The truth is that however I choose to express myself will not live up to the weight of these facts: Vincent died, and then James died.
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