Things in Nature Merely Grow

by Yiyun Li

Winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Yiyun Li writes about losing both her sons, Vincent in 2017 and James in 2024, with an austere focus on facts, language and the persistence of life. Addressed to James, the book describes ways of living thoughtfully alongside loss: gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, and learning the piano.