Hi, my name is Alexandra Cleeman. I'm a novelist and a contributor to the New York Times magazine.

When I write fiction, I get to construct a universe. But with a profile, I have to really

observe and come to understand someone as they are. Who is the person behind the work?

And so, this Sunday reader about to hear as a profile, I got to write about maybe the

most well-known writers writer in the literary world.

Ye-Yun Lee.

Ye-Yun's had a pretty stunning career. When she was young, reading material was scarce

and Beijing, where she grew up. She was so hungry to read every scrap of text she could,

that she'd saved the newspaper from the fishmonger to read later in private. Later in life,

she attended the best university in China, and then eventually came to Iowa to work on a

PhD in immunology. But during that time, she began writing stories in private while working

in the hospital. She wrote in English, and before she had any academic training, before

she attended any MFA program, she got a story published in the Paris Review.

I followed Ye-Yun's work for many years. I think she's someone who can put difficult

emotions on the page in this really crisp, new, and complex way, particularly grief. I

know several people who, after losing someone close, have been pointed toward her books.

And I think it's because Ye-Yun manages to avoid all the pre-packaged things that people

tell you about loss.

Ye-Yun wrote a novel based on the loss of her son, titled Where Reason Ends, which was

published in 2019. The book is a conversation between a mother and a son who's no longer

here. It's a perfect combination of form and feeling, even though the story is told

through a sparse dialogue. The strong presence of someone who no longer exists the same way

...