'Profoundly engaging in depth, with remarkable subtlety and rare, limpid beauty.A must-read' - Mary GaitskillA luminous memoir about reading, writing and how to find meaning in a lifeWritten over two years while the author battled depression, Dear Friend is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living.Interweaving personal memoir with a wide-ranging celebration of writers and books, this is a journey of recovery through literature. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Kierkegaard and Larkin, Yiyun Li traces the themes of time and transformation, presence and absence.Drawing on personal experiences from her difficult childhood in China, she constructs a beautiful, interior exploration of selfhood and what is required to choose life.