Extra

by Yiyun Li

A short story from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, about Granny Lin, a fifty-one year old Chinese woman who is honorably retired from Beijing Red Star Garment Factory, but whose life is in many ways, just about to start.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, China

Unknown Binding

Published December 22, 2003

About the author

Yiyun Li is the author of seven books, including Where Reasons End, which received the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; the essay collection Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life; and the novels The Vagrants and Must I Go. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Windham-Campbell Prize, among other honors. A contributing editor to A Public Space, she teaches at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique- I’ve never read a coming-of-age story about an older woman. This was incredibly moving and perfectly done.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

voor wereldliteratuur

[Sara]

Every mountin has road
and mine have extra
every sea has shore
and mine have extra
every sky has sun
but i have nether
and when i see it,the death steal that breath
my skin worm by his real blood
the life strang
even extra thaousand years i have cant mange to stop them from steal me
sextin seveten
zero thousand
my life pass any degree
and thee didnt be shy to steal from me
i sing at dramp
and dance at any ryham
my soul soul want to steal yr memory in page at ma heart
even my cold years cant stop seal from

[Angela]

“Human life consists of two things: love and sleep. And taking love in its broadest sense so that it includes the love of family, of friends, of food, of shelter, or safety, of fame, of money, of art, of God, of anything at all. I think we have no reasonable choice but to agree our life consists of love and sleep, and so do the lives of our characters, so to a great extent, a plot is a chronicle of love.”

Riley Johnson

READ FOR IWYS 2020

[Lily Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in English today. She lowkey a predator.