Where Reasons End
China

Where Reasons End

by Yiyun Li

Family & Heritage Literary Fiction Contemporary Fiction Fiction 2019

Summary

Where Reasons End is an intimate, deeply moving novel about a mother’s grief following the death of her teenage son, Nikolai. Unable to accept his absence, the narrator imagines a series of conversations with him in a world suspended between life and death. Through their exchanges, mother and son revisit memories, question language, discuss literature, and reflect on the complexities of their relationship.

Rather than offering simple explanations for an unbearable loss, Yiyun Li explores the limits of understanding and the ways words can both connect people and fail to express what matters most. Their conversations move between tenderness, humour, frustration, and sorrow, revealing the ordinary details that make a relationship unique.

Written in the aftermath of the author’s own loss, the novel blurs the boundaries between fiction and personal experience. It is a profound meditation on motherhood, grief, memory, and the enduring bond between a parent and a child.

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Country
China
Asia
About the author
Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li is a Chinese-American novelist and short-story writer born in Beijing, China, in 1972. She studied medicine at Peking University before moving to the United States in 1996, where she earned a master’s degree in immunology and later an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. Writing in English, Li is known for her precise, understated prose and psychologically complex portrayals of human relationships. Her fiction explores grief, displacement, cultural identity, family tensions, and the quiet struggles of individuals navigating social expectations. Her debut short-story collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2005), won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, while her novel The Vagrants (2009) examines the political and personal consequences of dissent in China. Other notable works include Kinder Than Solitude (2014) and Where Reasons End (2019), a deeply personal exploration of grief and loss. Li’s writing bridges Chinese and American cultural experiences while examining universal questions of memory, suffering, and belonging.

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Details
Published
2019
Author
Yiyun Li