M.F.A., The University of Iowa, 2005
M.S., The University of Iowa, 2000
B.S., Peking University, Beijing, China, 1996

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996 to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology but stopped short to become a writer. She has an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and an M.F.A. in creative non-fiction writing from the University of Iowa. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, Best American Short Stories, O Henry Prize Stories and elsewhere. She has received grants and awards from Lannan Foundation and Whiting Foundation. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. She was recently selected by Granta as one of the Best Young American Novelists. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages.

Publications:

• "The Vagrants", a novel, forthcoming from Random House (U.S.) and Fourth Estate/Harper Collins (U.K.), February 2009.
• "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers", September 2005.