Yu Hua

Yu Hua is one of the most influential Chinese contemporary fiction writers. He ushered in the Chinese literary avant-garde of the 1980s and was the first author of his country to be awarded the James Joyce Prize (2002). Influenced by Kafka, Bulgakov and Lu Xun, Yu Hua’s work remains close to the myth although he always uses extreme formal succinctness to tell his stories, moving between dirty realism and a dreamlike atmosphere full of rage and violence. A regular contributor to the New York Times, his books include ¡Viure! (Seix Barral, 1993 – published in English as To Live, and made into a film by Zhang Yimou), Brothers (Seix Barral, 2005 – published in English with the same title), and the essay China en diez palabras (Alba Editorial, 2013 – published in English as China in Ten Words).