Name: Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
ISBN: 9780399589096

Yiyun Li

"Yiyun Li's searing personal story of hospitalizations for depression and thoughts of suicide is interlaced with reflections on the solace and affirmations of life and personhood that Li found in reading the journals, diaries, and fiction of other writers: William Trevor, Katherine Mansfield, and more"--

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

A luminous memoir from the award-winning author of The Vagrants and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers 'What a long way it is from one life to another. Yet why write if not for that distance?' Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a memoir of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living. Li grew up in China, her mother suffering from mental illness, and has spent her adult life as an immigrant in a country not her own. She has been a scientist, an author, an immigrant, a mother - and through it all, she has been sustained by a deep connection with the writers and books she loves. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Kierkegaard and Larkin, Dear Friend is a journey through the deepest themes that bind these writers together. Interweaving personal experiences with a wide-ranging homage to her most cherished literary influences, Yiyun Li confronts the two most essential questions of her identity: Why write? And why live? Dear Friend is a beautiful, interior exploration of selfhood and a journey of recovery through literature.

Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life

decided to reread because i forgot everything about this book from autotheory. perfect for when you’re mad PMS-ing and want everything to fade into an unmistakable nothing. li writes about life, death, writing (i liked the parts on her reading inspirations, sorry) but everything meshes into how painful life is, the cycle of grief and trauma, and how writing can serve as an escape from that - or for someone to face it all, head first.

Ianna Chia

Katie Chua

i found each essay quite difficult to read, but in a good way. it's easy to skim through it but if you really pay attention, what yiyun li is writing is so profound and observant, carefully written, and just all around, made me think a lot. about writing, life, death, time, nostalgia, a lot of things, i suppose

Alexia

This is a great collection of thoughts and reflections on the aspects of life that shape us all: love, loss and friendship.

 Thank you Netgalley and Hamish Hamilton for sending me an ARC in exchage for an honest review!

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Reviews