Content report card
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers parent’s guide: what’s inside
LGBTQ+ themes
Substance use
What it offers
A note for parents
This is a sophisticated adult short story collection exploring Chinese culture, politics, and the immigrant experience with literary depth. While not graphically violent or explicit, the stories contain mature themes including lost love, family secrets, political oppression, and existential struggles that require emotional maturity to process. The prose is beautiful but dense, and content touches on infidelity, hidden children, and the psychological toll of political systems, making it better suited for older teens and adults than younger readers.
Analyzed by AI · 1 month ago
Read it with your kids?
Rate it and suggest an age to help other parents.
From the publisher
Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to... Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose. “Immortality,” winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for new writers, tells the story of a young man who bears a striking resemblance to a dictator and so finds a calling to immortality. In “The Princess of Nebraska,” a man and a woman who were both in love with a young actor in China meet again in America and try to reconcile the lost love with their new lives. “After a Life” illuminates the vagaries of marriage, parenthood, and gender, unfolding the story of a couple who keep a daughter hidden from the world. And in “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” in which a man visits America for the first time to see his recently divorced daughter, only to discover that all is not as it seems, Li boldly explores the effects of communism on language, faith, and an entire people, underlining transformation in its many meanings and incarnations. These and other daring stories form a mesmerizing tapestry of revelatory fiction by an unforgettable writer.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- Calibre Import
- Fantasy
- Social life and customs
- History
- American Short stories
- Nouvelles américaines
- Chinese Women authors
- Short stories
- Collections
Share this guide
ISBN 9780812973334 · Random House Trade Paperbacks