Yiyun Li

Author Yiyun Li is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University and director of the University's Program in Creative Writing at Princeton's Lewis Center for the Arts.

Her works include The Book of Goose, Where Reasons End, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, and Tolstoy Together, 85 Days of War and Peace with Yiyun Li. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Li’s honors and awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Windham Campbell Prize, a PEN/Malamud Award, the 2021 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and others. "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers", an independent film directed by Wayne Wang and adapted by Li from her short story, was the winner of Golden Shell for best film, 55th San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Born in Beijing, China, Li began writing in English in her twenties when she came to the United States to earn an M.S. in immunology from the University of Iowa. She then returned to the university five years later and earned an M.F.A. in creative non-fiction from the Non-fiction Writing Program and the famed Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.