2017-12-01
1 小时 11 分钟Sarah Shun-lien Bynum joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Extra,” by Yiyun Li from a 2003 issue of the magazine.
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.