Writer Yiyun Li lost both of her sons. When words fell short, she turned to music

Yiyun Li won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2025 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow. Hannah Yoon/Macmillan

Hannah Yoon/Macmillan

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Writer Yiyun Li does not talk about “grief” or the “grieving process.” To her, those words make it sound that at some point you emerge from grief. Instead, Li prefers to use