Yu Hua

Yu Hua (born April 3, 1960) is a Chinese author, widely considered the foremost writer of avant-garde fiction and one of the greatest living authors in China.

Yu was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang on April 3, 1960.

Yu Hua's parents worked as doctors, so his family lived in a hospital compound across from the mortuary.

His childhood proximity to death shaped his later works.

Shortly after his debut as a fiction writer in 1983, his first breakthrough came in 1987, when he released the short story "On the Road at Age Eighteen".

Yu Hua was regarded as a promising avant-garde or post-New Wave writer.

Many critics also regard him as a champion for Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing.

He practiced dentistry for five years before turning to fiction writing in 1983 because he didn't like "looking into people’s mouths the whole day."

For Yu Hua, the Cultural Revolution took place from the ages of seven to seventeen.

It is for this reason that many of his works include the violence and chaos that were prevalent at the time.

In his own words, “a calm, orderly society cannot produce such great works,” which is why one of the distinctive characteristics of his work is his penchant for detailed descriptions of brutal violence.

Yu Hua is interested in the interplay of diverse meaning constructions, particularly between imagination and reality.

Yu Hua's personal life is deeply reflected in his writing as a direct influence from the socio-economic challenges throughout his youth.

There are many elements in Yu Hua's writings that could have been influenced by his life.

He is considered to belong to the “generation of the 60s,” which refers to writers that spend their whole childhood and teenage years during the Cultural Revolution.

He was born in Hangzhou, but he spent his formative years in the Wuyuan Township in Haiyan, a small town that has been thought to be fairly monotonous, but much of Yu Hua's writing uses it as the setting behind his characters.

Yu Hua has stated that writing makes him feel like he is going back to Haiyan; thus, many of Yu Hua's writing uses Haiyan as a story setting.

After failing to enter the university, Yu Hua took a one-year program to become a dentist.

He was a dentist for 6 years but then started writing more seriously when he grew bored of that lifestyle.

Yu Hua has stated that his writing has been heavily influenced by both Franz Kafka and Yasunari Kawabata, among others.

He stated that by reading Kawabata's work, he understood that the point of writing was to show human feelings.

However, there is also a deep connection that Yu Hua has with his country and its history.

His writing reflects that.

In an interview with The New Yorker, he stated that, “My writing is always changing, because my country is always changing, and this inevitably affects my views and feelings about things.”

Yu Hua's personal life was heavily influenced by the changes that China has gone through, which is perhaps why many of his early texts often portray the world as cold and ruthless, marked by graphic descriptions of physical violence and bodily mutilation.

He stated in an interview that he grew up in a time when China went through many different changes in a relatively short period of time.

He said, “I grew up during the Cultural Revolution.

Then came Reform and Opening and the economy’s explosive takeoff in the 90s, and then came the fantastic wildness of the new century and our worldview and our value system were both turned upside down.” He has also said that childhood experiences will impact the life of a writer.

In recent years, Yu Hua has dedicated many of his works about China itself, both aimed at China and East Asia, and then also the Western world.

He also writes a monthly column for The New York Times in which he describes issues about China.

Many of his writings have been known for their violence, but he is also known for some of his more intimate style.

For example, the book, he stated in an interview that the book “To Live,” addresses “the cruelty and violence of the Cultural Revolution,” but that he also has “milder stories” like “The Boy in Twilight.” One of the key aspects of his writing is in dealing with the absurd.

In an interview, he stated that “I am a realistic writer, and if my stories are often absurd, that’s simply because they are a projection of absurd realities.” As China has changed, he has started writing about the absurdities that come with it.

In answering the criticisms that his writing is too violent, he responds that he is reflecting what he sees in reality, stating that “violence has long existed in my subconscious.”

Heavily inspired and affected by the Cultural Revolution, the theme of modern Chinese history is prevalent in Yu Hua's writing.

Yu Hua's work is very traditional, with psychologized storylines that investigate and illustrate the challenges of cultural disintegration and identity loss and his stories are often set in small towns during historical periods that he experienced including China under Chairman Mao's rule, the Civil War and Cultural Revolution, and post Mao capitalist China.

His novels To Live (1993) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (1995) were widely acclaimed.

While other works like Brothers (2005–06) received mixed reviews domestically, but positive reviews abroad.

Yu Hua has written five novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays.

His works have sold around a total of nine million copies and have been translated into over 20 languages.