Yiyun Li, “The Vagrants,” 2009

Yiyun Li discussing her first novel, “The Vagrants,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, February 10, 2009.

Yiyun Li is an award winning author of novels and short stories. Born in China in 1972, she earned a BA at Peking University before coming to the united States and getting a degree in Immunology from the University of Iowa, eventually moving on to a Master of fine Arts in creative fiction and non-fiction from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker and Paris Review, and two of the stories from her collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers were adapted into films by Wayne Wang. She has also written five novels, the most recent The Book of Goose in 2022.

This is the first of two interviews with Liyun Li. The second was recorded in 2014 for her novel, “Kinder than Solitude.”