A Sheltered Woman

Winner of the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize

Auntie Mei is a live-in nanny for newborns and their mothers. She has worked for a hundred and twenty-six families and looked after a hundred and thirty-one babies, one set of clients easily replaced by the next. But the hundred and thirty-second baby and his mother Chanel prompts a crisis in Auntie Mei’s life – a tremor that threatens to destroy her resolute detachment.

Reviews

‘Li inhabits the lives of her characters with such force and compassion that one cannot help but marvel at her remarkable talents.’ Junot Díaz

About the author

Yiyun Li is the author of two novels and two short story collections. Her books have won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and Guardian First Book Award. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She grew up in Beijing and lives in Oakland, California.