Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking
stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the
United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun
Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and
culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the
bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in
Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A
Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign
and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful
prose.
“Immortality,” winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize
for new writers, tells the story of a young man who bears a
striking resemblance to a dictator and so finds a calling
to immortality. In “The Princess of Nebraska,” a man and a
woman who were both in love with a young actor in China
meet again in America and try to reconcile the lost love
with their new lives.
“After a Life” illuminates the vagaries of marriage,
parenthood, and gender, unfolding the story of a couple who
keep a daughter hidden from the world. And in “A Thousand
Years of Good Prayers,” in which a man visits America for
the first time to see his recently divorced daughter, only
to discover that all is not as it seems, Li boldly explores
the effects of communism on language, faith, and an entire
people, underlining transformation in its many meanings and
incarnations.
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