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A Thousand Years of Good Prayers: Stories
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781400063123
ISBN: 1400063124
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: September 20, 2005
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: September 20, 2005
Studio: Random House
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Editorial Review:
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.These and other daring stories form a mesmerizing tapestry of revelatory fiction by an unforgettable writer.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Ten Perfect Jewels
Warning: Begin reading "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" at the BEGINNING of a weekend. If you wait till Sunday afternoon, you may find yourself skipping work on Monday, because you can't put it down. Yiyun Lee is a gifted story teller and an artist of the written word. Each of the ten stories in this collection is a perfect jewel.
Rating: - Just the kind of short stories I always look for and rarely find
This is the best collection of short stories I've read in a long time! I love the style of writing---very straightforward but also with so much meaning in every paragraph. Lately it seems every piece of fiction I read is gimmacky in some way--constantly changing perspectives, flowery phrases--but this is real writing, about people in tough situations interacting, about generations relating, about sad memories, but always with a firm grasp of reality. By the first paragraph of each story I know ... Read More
Rating: - Deserves a place among thte classics
I picked up this book at the airport while waiting for my plane. I've never heard about Yiyun Li before, but now I can't wait to read her first novel which I've heard will be coming out sometime soon. Yiyun Li is a real master of a short story, her writing is beautiful, passionate, sincere and very deep. This book is a rare find, that will stay in the reader's heart forever.
Rating:  - This book is terrible
Some background, I grew up in Beijing and attended good schools just like her, and I am much older than her. The point? She has no experience whatsoever - everything she wrote about the past was from wild imaginations, almost anything related to Mao and communists was far from the truth, hearsay, mostly.
The worst part of the book is the deep brown-nosed kissing the American *** in the expense of demonizing her own and my home country, China. America this and America that. As if once ... Read More
Rating: - Compelling short stories
I first found Ms. Li's short story, Immortality, in the Paris Review. She frames a story around a rural Chinese village's tradition of sending castrated young men (the euphemism she uses is "cleaned") to the imperial palace to serve as eunuchs. Fast forward to the Cultural Revolution, the story shifts focus to a young man with the likeness of the country's dictator (it can be inferred that she is speaking of Mao Tse-Tung). The surprise is how she weaves present with past to reveal stories of China. ... Read More
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