This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from The New Yorker Magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month we're going to hear A Small Flame by Ian Lee,
which appeared in The New Yorker in May of 2017.
She spoke English better than anyone.
She had studied with a tutor since she was seven.
something unheard of among her schoolmates in Beijing in 1985.
What Bella had wanted to play, instead of Red Riding Hood or Cinderella, was the little match girl.
The story was chosen by Brian Washington, who's the author of four books of fiction,
including the novel's family meal and Palaver,
which came out last year and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Hi, Brian.
Hi, Deborah.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Thank you for joining from Tokyo.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, not this hour.
We're at very different hours, but we're making it work.
So, how did you first come to Yi and Li's writing?