Things in Nature Merely Grow

Praise for Things in Nature Merely Grow:

‘An extraordinary, powerful, candid and intellectually confident book’ Baillie Gifford Prize Judges

‘To state that this courageous book is a testament to love is an understatement. One is left altered by it’ Observer

‘An unforgettable monument to endurance, one that offers a kind of fierce comfort’ Sunday Times

‘A meditation on living and radical acceptance that has the potential to offer deep solace; comfort from the abyss’ Guardian

‘A memoir unlike others, strange and profound and fiercely determined not to look away’ New York Times

‘A wonderful and extraordinarily wise book …The nearest comparison is Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking, which it matches. The best book I have read this year’ David Nicholls, author of You Are Here

‘A book that has not a single spare word in it, that never relies on a cliché, that never resorts to how [Li] is supposed to feel … I loved it so much’ Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

‘An astonishing high-wire act of writing and thinking and mourning … An extraordinary book’ Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness

‘A formidable testament to a mother’s love … one of the most important books to be published in years’ Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

‘A beautiful, unsentimental book that offers some understanding of coping with devastating loss’ Douglas Stuart, author of John of John

‘One of the most astounding memoirs I have ever read … Li is a truly original thinker’ Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?

‘A manifesto of living, not dying, and of how we endure the most unimaginable things’ Sinéad Gleeson, The Week

‘A book unlike any I’ve read, that brims with rare clarity and intelligence, with love and care’ Cecile Pin, author of Celestial Lights

‘I don’t think I’ve ever read a more truthful or humane book … I will return to it for the rest of my life’ Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China, and came to the United States in 1996. She is the recipient of several prizes for her writing and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Li’s stories have been published in the New Yorker, the Paris Review and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, USA, with her husband and their two sons.