Due to unforeseen circumstances this event has been cancelled. MLF and the Confuchius Institute hope to have Yiyun Li at the Festival on another occasion.

A luminous and profound memoir about the consolations of literature, ‘Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life’ was written over two years, during which author Yiyun Li was in and out of hospital battling depression.

Drawing on personal experiences – her unstable mother, her time in the Chinese army – and those of writers including Larkin, Kierkegaard and Mansfield, she conducts a painful and exuberant voyage into the interior, and considers what is required to choose life. Author Mary Gaitskill called it ‘a must-read for anyone trying to stay sane in a world that might be perceived as insane.’

Yiyun is the author of the novels ‘The Vagrants’ and ‘Kinder Than Solitude’, and the short story collections ‘A Thousand Years of Good Prayers’ and ‘Gold Boy, Emerald Girl’. She was named one of Granta’s 21 Best Young American Novelists in 2007. Presented in partnership with the Confucius Institute, the event will be hosted by Susan Barker, author of The Incarnations.