Sarah Shun-lien Bynum Reads Yiyun Li

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum阅读Yiyun li

The New Yorker: Fiction

小说

2017-12-01

1 小时 11 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Extra,” by Yiyun Li from a 2003 issue of the magazine.

单集文稿 ...

  • This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

  • I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.

  • Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

  • This month we're going to hear extra by Yi Yun li, which was published in the New Yorker in December of 2003.

  • Granny Lin Gasps.

  • She has never had a husband in her life, and the prospect of a dead husband frightens her.

  • Yet Auntie Wong makes the decision for her right then and there between two fish stands, and in a short time, she finds Granny Lin a match.

  • The story was chosen by Sarah Swan Yenbeinum, whos the author of two novels, Miss Hempel Chronicles and Madeleine is sleeping, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2004.

  • Hi, Sarah.

  • Hi, Debra.

  • So extra.

  • It was the first story by Yin Lee that was published in the New Yorker back in 2003, and I believe it was only the second story that she'd published anywhere.

  • Was it the first piece of hers that you read?

  • It was.

  • It was.

  • And I remember feeling excitement, both because of the work itself and also because we had just missed each other at Iowa.

  • But I had already sort of heard about this wonderful writer who was coming out of the program.

  • What impression did the story make on you when you read it?

  • The story felt very poignant to me because the character of Granny Lynn, and I imagine the story is taking place somewhere in the nineties, maybe the mid nineties or so.

  • The character of Granny Lin is around the same age as my own mother.