Product Description

Brilliant and original, 'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers' introduces a remarkable first collection of stories about China from an author set to become a major literary talent. In this extraordinary first collection, Yiyun Li brings us a modern China facing up to a complex history of repression and guilt. In 'Immortality', winner of the Paris Review prize, a young man bears a striking resemblance to the dictator, and so finds a strange kind of calling. In 'Extra', first published in the New Yorker, a Chinese woman, alone in middle age, befriends a young boy who has become an outcast in a remote country school. In their friendship, we see how love can begin to overcome the strictures that dominate their lives. In turn horrifying and breathtakingly lyrical, Yiyun Li, a new and talented young Chinese writer, confronts the silence that dominated the history of her country, and illuminates how mythology, politics, history and culture intersect with personality. She leaves us with an enduring vision of a country undergoing tremendous change.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42736 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 254 pages

Review
'Li's writing is beautifully spare and controlled.' The Times 'Yiyun's confidence as a storyteller lends her fiction a traditional air, but there's nothing old fashioned about her perspective!When I've sampled other recent Chinese writing, I've had a sense of western publishers being seduced by the novelty of it all, snapping up authors with dramatic histories and slim talents. Yiyun is the real deal!Yiyun has the talent, the vision and the respect for life's insoluble mysteries to be a truly fine writer. Michel Faber, Guardian 'Great narrative skill!demonstrates that the best way to learn about people in a foreign culture is through good fiction.' Irish Times 'Li has a remarkable talent for telling the story of the whole of China through apparently insignificant lives.' New Statesman 'These mesmerising stories present a glimpse of modern China more nuanced than any reporter could ever hop to gleam.' Daily Mail 'Li's moving, engrossing stories are particular in their place!but universal in their themes and their relevance.' The Observer 'If you have ever wondered what life is like in modern China, but can't afford the airfare and lessons in Mandarin, you should read this book. In fact if you haven't given China a second thought, this is a collection of stories worth reading.' Impac News

Melanie McGrath, Evening Standard
'a wonderfully well-written, fascinating and affecting collection
of stories.'

The Observer
'Li's moving, engrossing stories are particular in their
place...but universal in their themes and their relevance.'

Customer Reviews

A Modern Day Mythical Masterpiece
This collection of short stories based in China captures invaluable insights into 20th century Chinese traditions and every day way of life there. Li's narrative style adds a sort of mythical tone to the stories, as one might have expected ancient Chinese myths to be told. The way that Li focuses on the development of human feelings within Communist China really magnifies the effect that a Totalitarian regime can have on a human mind. The stories act as a kind of historical insight into China over the last 100 years but also act as an analysis on human behaviour in general and how people act and cope under extreme situations.
I absolutely loved the style of this book and how it allows your imagination to expolore at times extremely surreal situations. A great book!!

Black/White
I finished this book and I have mixed feelings. Not because the stories are bad. On the contrary, they are quite good. What bothered me is that almost aggressive anti-communistic attitude. There is one sentence where old Iranian woman says "I love China. China a good country, very old" and that would be pretty much everything said positive about China (and that comes from the mouth of Iranian women who never visited the country she's talking about!).

I don't have doubts that communism in China was quite different than communism in ex Yugoslavia (where I grow up) and therefore all those rigidness Yiyun Li is talking about is unfamiliar for me. Indeed here there were blindness as well and rigidness and it possibly was dangerous to criticize regime but it was nothing like it has been described in this book.

I just couldn't get rid of the thoughts that author is living in USA is publishing book (which probably is in high percentage truth. An awful truth!) where is criticizing horribly something about huge majority of Americans (or Western world in general) don't have a clue but they "know" it's VERY bad; book about the country not very popular in USA; book with lot black/white comparison between China and America (of course China is always and only black while America is promised land and everything about it is absolutely fantastic). She used the language and topic that will find very fertile soil in America. She described China as a hell from which every thinking Chinese want to leave. Again that might be truth but there must be something good there; or at least some respect about the heritage the ones who fled in America brought with themselves. But then, she's not mentioning that. And that thought has had big influence in my general opinion about the book.

As I said the stories are very good but if I'm an immigrant and a writer I doubt I'd be able to write this type of book about my mother land. maybe that's not something I should be proud of but I simply couldn't neglect part I love.

What we sacrifice makes life meaningful
Yiyun Li's stories are anchored in the Chinese past as well as in the present.
The scars of the Cultural Revolution with its indiscriminate victimizing, its drastic priggishness, its denunciations and liquidations are still felt in nearly all families. It was a period of black and white, of for or against, of silence or lies.
Modern China is in a serious upheaval and ravaged by doubt: `once doubt starts, it runs rampant.' Now, `a bird is willing to die for a morsel of food. A man is willing to die for a penny of wealth.' The chasm between the haves and the have-nots is sharply widening.
The time of the arranged marriages and obedient children is replaced by a clash of generations. The parents are still looking for a `good' marriage, but many children are getting divorced or confess that they are gay.
Yiyun Li's naturally flowing short stories shine through their mostly dimmed, but heavy, emotions, their nostalgia of youth, their surprising revelations and their subdued, but dramatic ends.

At the end of the book, the author gives a shocking report of a bestial execution during the Cultural Revolution.
Not to be missed by all lovers of Chinese and world literature.