Yiyun Li Wins Guardian First Book Award
Posted on December 7, 2006
Chinese-born author Yiyun Li has won the £10,000 Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, a book of short stories. It is the first time that a short story collection has won the award.
Judges said Li's stories of modern China and Chinese Americans in the US were "perfectly crafted". The Chinese author lives in California but was denied permanent residency in the US this year, despite letters of support from novelist Salman Rushdie.We have to wonder why she was denied permanent residency in the U.S., especially with people like Salman Rushdie writing letters of support. It's a bit puzzling, given that she appears to be a model citizen. Well, in any event, her writing career is certainly going well.*****
Li's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers describes the often bewildering changes being experienced by the people of China as the country's econominc growth accelerates. The book has already won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story award and the California Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers. Judging chair and Guardian literary editor Claire Armitstead said she was "delighted" to see Yiyun Li win.
"Short stories rarely win awards, partly because of a perception that, because they are short, they are intrinsically inferior to the novel," she said. "This collection shows triumphantly how, in the right hands, less can indeed be more." Li's win marks the fourth time the First Book Award has gone to a work of fiction since it was launched eight years ago.