A highly decorated career in writing

Yu Hua published his first book, Leaving Home at the Age of Eighteen, in 1984. Since, he has written 12 more, including novels, short stories and essays.

Most notable is To Live (1992), which won him Italy's Premio Grinzane Cavour Award in 1998. It was made into a film of the same name by Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li and Ge You. The film won the grand jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Yu became the first Chinese writer to win the James Joyce Foundation Award in 2002. In 2004, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant was granted the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award in the United States.

The same year, Screaming in the Rain (1992), which comprises seven novels and three collections of essays, earned him the title of knight of arts and literature, awarded by the French government. His books have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese and Korean.