Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China, and moved to the United States after she got B.S. from Peking University in 1996. She received an MFA in creative nonfiction from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All-Story . Two of the stories from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers were adapted into films: The Princess of Nebraska and the title story , which Li adapted herself.

She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

• Whiting Writers' Award

• Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX

• Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, for her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

• PEN/Hemingway Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

• Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

• California Book Award for first fiction

• Granta's 21 Best of Young American Novelists

Anthologies

• Best American Short Stories

Stephanie Merritt of The Observer wrote,

Yiyun Li's 2005 debut story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers earned her comparisons with Chekhov and Alice Munro. Her first novel, The Vagrants , draws heavily on the art of the short story as it follows a disparate group of citizens of the industrial town of Muddy River over three months in 1979.

Ian Thomson of The Independent wrote,

With its controlled understatement and scrupulous and unsparing lucidity, The Vagrants is a work of great moral poise and dignity. These days, few writers can be said to possess gravitas; yet Yiyun Li exudes a seriousness that would be remarkable in one twice her age. As a chronicle of political betrayal under a modern dictatorship, The Vagrants is a minor classic; I have not read such a compelling work in years.

• Yiyun Li's Official Homepage

• "The Rumpus Interview with Yiyun Li", January 14th, 2009

• January 2009 interview with Yiyun Li

• "Executioner Songs", The Wall Street Journal , JANUARY 30, 2009

• "Interviews: Yiyun Li", Identity Theory

• Articles by Yuyun Li on her UK publisher's blog, 5th Estate

• Yiyun Li speaks about Gold Boy, Emerald Girl on KRUI's The Lit Show