Zhang: What was it called?

Yu: 'The First Dormitory'. I've always been unwilling to let people know about this piece of fiction.

Zhang: Did you use the name 'Yu Hua'?

Yu: Yes, though at that time I had thought of using a pen-name. Afterwards I decided against it. I knew that it would be hard to be published, and I was afraid that even if I was published people wouldn't say that it was my work. So in the end I did not use a pen-name. There was one benefit to sending drafts to publications back then-- we didn't need to attach stamps. As long as you cut a corner into the envelope, the publication would pay for it.

Zhang: This continued until the 80's.

Yu: Yes. And if it was returned I would just turn over the envelope, change the name of the periodical, cut another corner, use some glue, and throw it into a mailbox. I marvelled at how my stories traveled even farther than I had-- of course, in China. For me, a very significant event was when some of my freelance work was published in Beijing Literature. They then awarded me the Beijing Literature Prize after the evaluation committee voted it first. My career as an author probably started at that moment.

Two Teachers: Franz Kafka and Kawabata Yasunari

Zhang: You and another few authors have been collectively called 'vanguard authors'. In the literary climate of the 80's, although your emergence was inevitable, it was also quite sudden. Where did your avant-garde writing style come from and when did it form?

Yu: My first writings were not different from other writing of the time. I just mentioned that in 1984 I won the Beijing Literature Prize. But this process was not always smooth and did not become popular all over the country that quickly and win a national prize. Many years later, I bumped into a friend who voted for me for that prize, and he said that at that time the judges felt it was a pity that it had been ignored by the national prizes, because many of them actually went to short stories from Beijing Literature.

Zhang: Was your style in that fiction the same as your later style?

Yu: Not really.

Zhang: Thankfully it wasn't criticized. If it was, it would have misled you greatly.