Gold Boy, Emerald Girl - Hardcover

Li, Yiyun

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400068134 ISBN 13: 9781400068135

Publisher: Random House Inc, 2010

Synopsis

In these spellbinding stories, Yiyun Li, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winner and acclaimed author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Vagrants, gives us exquisite fiction filled with suspense, depth, and beauty, in which history, politics, and folklore magnificently illuminate the human condition. 
   
In the title story, a professor introduces her middle-aged son to a favorite student, unaware of the student’s true affections. In “A Man Like Him,” a lifelong bachelor finds kinship with a man wrongly accused of an indiscretion. In “The Proprietress,” a reporter from Shanghai travels to a small town to write an article about the local prison, only to discover a far more intriguing story involving a shopkeeper who offers refuge to the wives and children of inmates. In “House Fire,” a young man who suspects his father of sleeping with the young man’s wife seeks the help of a detective agency run by a group of feisty old women. 

    Written in lyrical prose and with stunning honesty, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl reveals worlds strange and familiar, and cultures both traditional and modern, to create a mesmerizing and vibrant landscape of life.

About this title

Review:

"A literary voice that brings to mind Nabokov's description of Chekhov's narrative style: 'The story is told in the most natural way possible...the way one person relates to another the most important things in his life, slowly and yet without a break, in a slightly subdued voice.' As in reading Chekhov, one is struck by how profoundly important the lives or ordinary people are made to seem, and by what a sizable chunk of existence - an entire life or several lives - has been compressed into a few pages....[Yiyun Li] succeeds in making the details of a very particular (and very sharply drawn) time and place express something broader and more universal....[Li's stories] have the power to create hushed intervals that resonate with emotion...."Gold Boy, Emerald Girl "is an example of the treasure an artist can fashion from the raw materials of ordinary existence."
--Francine Prose, "The New York Times Book Review, "Editor's Choice
"Li's collection well deserves a celebration wi

"[Resonates] with emotion . . . "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl" is an example of the treasure an artist can fashion from the raw materials of ordinary existence."--Francine Prose, " The New York Times Book Review"

"Yiyun Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order. Each tale in this collection is as wild and beautiful and thorny as a heart."--Junot Diaz

"A moving and unforgettable experience . . . Yiyun Li's characters, like the stories they inhabit, often seem at first glance quiet, modest and unassuming. [But] there is considerable drama hidden beneath the placid surfaces they present to the world."--"The Washington Post"

"Yiyun Li is a marvel. . . . Her writing is lyrical, circular and finely etched, with an emotional impact that both satisfies and surprises."--NPR

"Li has been called 'China's Chekhov, ' and it's easy to see why: With their quiet authority, exquisite control, and illumination of those quicksilver moments on which entire lives pivot, [her] tales lodge in your rib cage long after you've finished reading."--"Marie Claire"

[Resonates] with emotion . . . "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl" is an example of the treasure an artist can fashion from the raw materials of ordinary existence. Francine Prose, " The New York Times Book Review"
Yiyun Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order. Each tale in this collection is as wild and beautiful and thorny as a heart. Junot Diaz
A moving and unforgettable experience . . . Yiyun Li s characters, like the stories they inhabit, often seem at first glance quiet, modest and unassuming. [But] there is considerable drama hidden beneath the placid surfaces they present to the world. "The Washington Post"
Yiyun Li is a marvel. . . . Her writing is lyrical, circular and finely etched, with an emotional impact that both satisfies and surprises. NPR
Li has been called China s Chekhov, and it s easy to see why: With their quiet authority, exquisite control, and illumination of those quicksilver moments on which entire lives pivot, [her] tales lodge in your rib cage long after you ve finished reading. "Marie Claire""

[Resonates] with emotion . . . Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is an example of the treasure an artist can fashion from the raw materials of ordinary existence. Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review
Yiyun Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order. Each tale in this collection is as wild and beautiful and thorny as a heart. Junot Diaz
A moving and unforgettable experience . . . Yiyun Li s characters, like the stories they inhabit, often seem at first glance quiet, modest and unassuming. [But] there is considerable drama hidden beneath the placid surfaces they present to the world. The Washington Post
Yiyun Li is a marvel. . . . Her writing is lyrical, circular and finely etched, with an emotional impact that both satisfies and surprises. NPR
Li has been called China s Chekhov, and it s easy to see why: With their quiet authority, exquisite control, and illumination of those quicksilver moments on which entire lives pivot, [her] tales lodge in your rib cage long after you ve finished reading. Marie Claire

"

"[Resonates] with emotion . . . Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is an example of the treasure an artist can fashion from the raw materials of ordinary existence."--Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review

"Yiyun Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order. Each tale in this collection is as wild and beautiful and thorny as a heart."--Junot Diaz

"A moving and unforgettable experience . . . Yiyun Li's characters, like the stories they inhabit, often seem at first glance quiet, modest and unassuming. [But] there is considerable drama hidden beneath the placid surfaces they present to the world."--The Washington Post

"Yiyun Li is a marvel. . . . Her writing is lyrical, circular and finely etched, with an emotional impact that both satisfies and surprises."--NPR

"Li has been called 'China's Chekhov, ' and it's easy to see why: With their quiet authority, exquisite control, and illumination of those quicksilver moments on which entire lives pivot, [her] tales lodge in your rib cage long after you've finished reading."--Marie Claire

About the Author:

Yiyun Li is the author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Vagrants. A native of Beijing and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the recipient of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Whiting Writers’ Award, and the Guardian First Book Award. In 2007, Granta named her one of the best American novelists under thirty-five. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories, among others. She teaches writing at the University of California, Davis, and lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and their two sons.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1400068134
• ISBN 13: 9781400068135
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 221