Yiyun Li, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author known for her memoir about the suicides of her two sons, has released a new novel that diverges from her usual subjects. In Music Against the Night, Li explores themes of loss and expression through the lives of two musical prodigies set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Li’s personal history is marked by profound tragedy. Her son Vincent died by suicide in 2017 at the age of 16, and her son James passed away in 2024 at age 19. These events formed the basis of her 2025 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow, which chronicles her journey through grief. Rather than discussing the “grieving process,” Li prefers the term “abyss,” describing it as a permanent state she expects to inhabit for the rest of her life.
“James’ death taught me to suffer better,” Li said. “To say, ‘I can do it, and I can live with my pain and sorrow without ever wanting to stop feeling.'”
The decision to write a historical novel came while Li was midway through the project after James’s death. She explained that turning to history allowed her to live vicariously through characters from a different era. Additionally, she sought a subject where language inherently falls short. “When I start a new project, I would like a subject where words naturally fall short. So music is that choice,” she noted, emphasizing that falling short of expressing grief does not equate to failure.
Born in China, Li served a year in the Chinese military before moving to the United States to study immunology. She eventually abandoned her Ph.D. program to pursue writing and is currently a professor in the creative writing program at Princeton University.
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