Radio Free Asia & the Asia Society present award-winning author Yiyun Li, who will discuss her new novel The Vagrants. Date: February 18th Time: 6:40 - 8:15 pm Location: Radio Free Asia, 2025 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Ground-floor conference center. Cost: Asia Society members and RFA staff $5, nonmembers $10. Please RSVP at https://secure.acceptiva.com/?cst=375965 RSVP deadline: noon, Tuesday, February 17th. Set in China in the late 1970s and inspired by author Yiyun Li's own experiences, The Vagrants is a deeply imaginative, beautifully realized story of life in the provincial city of Muddy River. "Magnificent. . . . Li records these events dispassionately and with such a magisterial sense of direction that the reader can't help being drawn into the novel, like a sleeper trapped in an anxiety dream." - Publishers Weekly (Starred review) A young woman from Muddy River, Gu Shan, always a bold spirit and a former follower of the late Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in communism. A political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissention. Her distraught mother, determined to follow the superstitious custom of burning her only child's clothing for the journey to the next world, is about to make another bold decision. Her father, who has already buried his rebellious daughter in his mind and heart, begins to retreat into memories of the past. Neither can imagine that their daughter's execution will have profound and far-reaching effects on other people, in their town, and in Beijing beyond. Yiyun Li is a winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, and the Guardian First Book Award. She grew up in Beijing and attended Peking University. She came to the United States in 1996 to study medicine and started writing two years later. After receiving a master's degree in immunology from the University of Iowa, she attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received an MFA. The author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Li was selected for a Whiting Award and named by Granta as one of best young American novelists. Yiyun Li teaches at the University of California, Davis and lives in Oakland, California. Sarah Jackson-Han, Media Relations Director at Radio Free Asia and formerly with NPR and Agence France-Presse, will moderate the discussion. Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org <mailto:engnews-leave@rfanews.org> . To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org <mailto:engnews-join@rfanews.org> ##### Sarah Jackson-Han Director, Media Relations Radio Free Asia (RFA) jacksonhans(a)rfa.org 202 530 7774 w 202 907 4613 m