No smooth path

Li has been publishing in Chinese and English for nearly 25 years. But there was no smooth path for the young journalist who came to Canada in 1987.

Yan Li is having an excellent year. As co-ordinator of the Chinese language program at Renison University College, she celebrates her students’ achievements. For the third year running, Waterloo students won first place in the Ontario University Students Chinese contest held at Renison in April. Not surprisingly, Li received the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Teachers Award from the Chinese Culture and Education Society of Canada in 2009.

She is also the director of the Confucius Institute, a joint venture between the Office of Chinese Language Council International, Waterloo, and Renison to promote studies in Chinese language and culture. Last year she brought top authors from Canada and China to Renison for a literary symposium. This fall the institute will host a seminar commemorating the 70th anniversary of the death of Dr. Norman Bethune.

To crown the year, Li will bring out three books at the same time: Chinese Literature (University of Nanjing Press), a bilingual English-Chinese reader; Red Duckweed (Writers’ Publishing House, Beijing), a novel written in Chinese; and Lily in the Snow (Women’s Press, Toronto), a novel written in English, on the experience of new immigrants.

Li has been publishing in Chinese and English for nearly 25 years. China’s Literature magazine featured her in June 2009 as a leading Chinese-Canadian creative writer. But there was no smooth path for the young journalist who came to Canada in 1987. She supported herself with cleaning and housekeeping work, while writing by night.

“It was hard at times,” Li says. She found strength in her rich Chinese background and in the personal growth she experienced in Canada. “I have always believed that as long as you make an effort, you will achieve something.” And she did. Her first Canadian novel, Daughters of the Red Land, was a finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1996.

Although a combined academic and writing career is highly demanding, Li has no regrets. “I now understand something I read years ago, that ‘working is beautiful,’ ” she says. “For a woman to be able to work and make a contribution to society is a beautiful thing.”

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