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MILLS PROFESSOR YIYUN LI WINS 2006 PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD Oakland, CA - A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the acclaimed short story collection by Yiyun Li, assistant professor of English at Mills College, has won the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first book of fiction. The award will be presented to Li by Patrick Hemingway on April 2, 2006 at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, MA. A Chinese émigré and Oakland resident, Li will receive $8,000 as well as fellowship opportunities from the University of Idaho and the Ucross Foundation artist-in-residency program in Wyoming. The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is America’s best-known prize for a distinguished work of first fiction. Among the esteemed writers who have received the award in recent years are Marilynne Robinson, Chang-rae Lee, and Jhumpa Lahiri This year’s judges were Charlotte Bacon, Bernard Cooper, and Rosellen Brown. Daniel Alarcon, distinguished visiting writer at Mills, was named one of two 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN award finalists for his book War By Candlelight (HarperCollins). The annual award was founded in 1976 by late PEN member Mary Hemingway to honor the memory of Ernest Hemingway and to draw attention to first works of fiction. The San Francisco Chronicle recently honored A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (Random House) in their “Best Books of 2005” selections. According to Publishers Weekly, the book is “A beautifully executed debut collection of ten stories exploring the ravages of the Cultural Revolution on modern Chinese, both in China and America.” Li grew up in Beijing, came to America to study medicine, and entered the Iowa Writers Workshop after earning her master’s degree in immunology from the University of Iowa. Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering innovative degree programs for undergraduate women, and graduate degree and certificate programs for women and men. Consistently ranked among the top 75 liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Mills is also recognized as one of the country’s 20 most diverse liberal arts colleges. The Princeton Review selected Mills as one of 11 colleges for first-time inclusion in its Best 361 Colleges–2005. Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California on 135 lush acres, Mills provides a dynamic liberal arts education fostering women’s leadership, social responsibility, and creativity. PRESS CONTACT: |
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