You ever read something and feel like the author is staring right through you, but also somehow looking past you at the same time? That’s basically the vibe with Yiyun Li. If you’ve been following her work in The New Yorker lately, you know she doesn’t do "explosions." There are no car chases. No loud, dramatic breakups in the rain.
Instead, she gives you these incredibly sharp, almost clinical observations about what it’s like to be a human being trying to survive your own brain.
Honestly, her recent trajectory is heavy. There’s no other way to put it. In the March 17, 2025 issue, she published a piece called “Techniques and Idiosyncrasies,” which followed another major story, “The Particles of Order,” from late 2024. These aren't just stories; they’re part of a massive, ongoing conversation she’s having with her own life and the unthinkable losses she’s faced.
The New Yorker and the Architecture of Grief
A lot of people first really noticed Li's connection to The New Yorker when she started writing about her sons. It’s a topic most people can’t even look at directly. She had two sons, Vincent and James, and both died by suicide—Vincent in 2017 and James more recently.
How do you even write after that?
Well, she did. Her 2019 novel Where Reasons End was essentially a fictionalized dialogue between a mother and her dead son. But her New Yorker essays and stories lately, including the ones hitting the stands in 2025 and 2026, feel like they’ve moved into a different phase.
What she’s doing now
- She’s moving away from the "dialogue" format into something more observational.
- Her new memoir, "Things in Nature Merely Grow" (published May 2025), was teased through her magazine pieces.
- She’s obsessing over "aboutness"—or rather, her hatred of it.
Li wrote a famous essay for Harper's (and has echoed the sentiment in The New Yorker) where she basically said that "aboutness" is for propagandists. If you ask her what a story is "about," she’ll probably give you a look. To her, a story isn't a lesson. It’s not a "message" about grief. It’s just... life happening on the page.
Why People Get Her Style Wrong
People often call her writing "cold." Or "distant."
I think that’s a total misunderstanding. If you actually sit with a story like “The Particles of Order,” you realize she’s not being cold; she’s being precise. She grew up in Beijing and was a world-class mathematician before she ever became a writer. You can see that math brain in her sentences.
Every word is there for a reason.
She’s mentioned in interviews that she doesn't write in her mother tongue (Mandarin) because English gives her a kind of "distance" that allows her to be more honest. It’s like wearing gloves so you can pick up a hot coal without screaming.
The "No Car Crash" Rule
In her classes at Princeton, Li literally bans her students from writing about car crashes.
Why? Because she thinks extreme emotions are actually boring to write about. Everyone feels the same way when a car hits them. The real "meat" of a story is the silence after the crash, or the way someone chooses a specific type of yarn to knit with while their world is ending.
It’s about the "dyad"—the relationship between two people talking. Usually, it's just two characters in a room, or one character talking to a ghost. That’s where the real drama is.
The 2025 and 2026 Shift: "Things in Nature Merely Grow"
If you’re looking for her latest work, you need to check out the March 2025 New Yorker piece. It’s a precursor to her latest memoir. In it, she talks about gardening. But don’t go in expecting some "gardening as a metaphor for healing" nonsense.
Li hates metaphors like that.
She explicitly says that the flowers she plants (thousands of bulbs, by the way) are not a metaphor for her sons. They are just flowers. They grow because that’s what things in nature do. They don't care about your feelings. There is something incredibly comforting—and kinda brutal—about that perspective.
Is She "Difficult" to Read?
Kinda. But not because the language is hard. The English is actually very simple and clear.
The difficulty comes from the lack of "resolution." If you’re looking for a story that ends with a hug and a "life goes on" message, Yiyun Li is not your girl. Her stories end where they end. Sometimes they just stop.
She’s a fan of writers like William Trevor and Elizabeth Bowen, writers who specialize in the "unsaid."
Key Themes in Her Recent New Yorker Work:
- The Void: She often talks about a "void" where the "I" should be.
- Achievement vs. Reality: There’s often a subtle tension about "smart" kids and the pressure of expectations.
- Internal Landscapes: She doesn't care what's happening in the news; she cares what's happening in your kitchen at 3 AM.
How to Actually Approach Her Work
If you want to get the most out of Yiyun Li's New Yorker contributions, stop trying to "solve" them.
Read them like you’re eavesdropping on a conversation in a library. You won't get the whole context. You might not even like the people talking. But you’ll hear something—a turn of phrase, a specific way of describing a shadow—that makes you realize you’re not as alone in your weird thoughts as you thought you were.
Actionable Steps for Readers:
- Start with "Wednesday’s Child" (2023): It’s a perfect entry point into her more recent, grief-adjacent fiction.
- Listen to her on "The Writer’s Voice": She often reads her own stories for The New Yorker podcast. Hearing her voice—which is very calm and measured—completely changes how you read the text on the page.
- Look for the 100th Anniversary Issue (2025): She was a major part of the fiction celebrations, representing the magazine’s "modern masters."
- Check out her 2026 reviews: She’s been doing more literary criticism lately, which gives you a roadmap of who she thinks is worth reading.
Ultimately, Li isn't trying to be a "bereavement expert." She’s just a writer who refuses to look away from the silence. If you can handle the quiet, her work is some of the most rewarding stuff being published today.
Next Steps for You: Start by finding the podcast episode of Yiyun Li reading “Techniques and Idiosyncrasies.” It’s the best way to "hear" the rhythm of her prose before you dive into the 2025 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow.
