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To Kill Time — Singapore Unbound
Reviewing beautiful prose to unearth a reason to live
“What kind of life permits a person the right to become his own subject?”
Yiyun Li, a prize-winning fiction writer, who grew up in China and now lives in the USA, asks this surprising question in her 2017 memoir Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. The question is surprising because most memoirists assume such a right in writing about themselves. Not Li. She questions this assumption perhaps as a way of demanding an answer from herself because that is what a memoir is-an exploration of your own life where you become the subject of your own introspection, both like and unlike a character in a novel.
Li chose to write about a difficult time in her life, a period of two years when she battled with depression so dark that she attempted suicide twice. Outwardly, she was living the fortunate life. A supportive husband, two children, fulfilment of her desire to move to the USA, ability to choose a creative career very different from the one she was trained for, enrolment in the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, swift recognition for her talent, interactions with famous writers and, above all, her tremendous intelligence, all add up to a life worth envying. Why then did she find herself in the hospital on more than one occasion, sharing…
