The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Skip to product information
1 of 1

Click to look inside

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
World of Books

At World of Books, you’ll find millions of preloved reads at great prices, from bestsellers to hidden gems. Every book you buy saves money and helps reduce waste, so you can read more for less while giving stories a second life.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free US shipping over $15
  • Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
  • Millions of affordable books
  • Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Shortlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

In luminous prose, award-winning author Yiyun Li weaves together the lives of unforgettable characters who are forced to make moral choices, and choices for survival, in China in the late 1970s.

As morning dawns on the provincial city of Muddy River, a spirited young woman, Gu Shan, once a devoted follower of Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in Communism. Now a political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissent. While Gu Shan's distraught mother makes bold decisions, her father begins to retreat into memories. Neither of them imagines that their daughter's death will have profound and far-reaching effects, in Muddy River and beyond. Among the characters affected are Kai, a beautiful radio announcer who is married to a man from a powerful family; Tong, a lonely seven-year-old boy; and Nini, a hungry young girl. Beijing is being rocked by the Democratic Wall Movement, an anti-Communist groundswell designed to move the country toward a more enlightened and open society, but the government backlash will be severe.

In this spellbinding novel, the brilliant Yiyun Li gives us a powerful and beautiful portrait of human courage and despair in dramatic times.

Shall I Go, Where Causes End, Kinder Than Solitude, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants, and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl are among Yiyun Li's works of fiction, as well as the memoir Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She has won numerous accolades, including the PEN/Hemingway Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and the Windham-Campbell Prize, and was featured in The New Yorker's fiction issue 20 Under 40. The New Yorker, A Public Place, The Best American Short Stories, and The O have all published her work. Among other publications, Henry Prize Tales. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and lectures at Princeton University.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780812973341
ISBN 10 0812973348
Title The Vagrants
Author Yiyun Li
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Random House USA Inc
Year published 2010-02-16
Number of pages 368
Prizes Winner of American Library Association Notable Books 2010, Short-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2011
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.