A frequent victim of bullying at school, and after several suicide attempts, she found refuge in literature after reading the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Faulkner, and Truman Capote.

[2] After dropping out of the Yokohama Kyoritsu Gakuen high school, she joined the Tokyo Kid Brothers (東京キッドブラザース) theater troupe and worked as an actress and assistant director.

Her novels include Furu Hausu (フルハウス, "Full House", 1996), which won the Noma Literary Prize for best work by a new author; Kazoku Shinema (家族シネマ, "Family Cinema," 1997), which won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize; Gōrudo Rasshu (ゴールドラッシュ, "Gold Rush" 1998), which was translated into English as Gold Rush (2002); and Hachi-gatsu no Hate (8月の果て, "The End of August," 2004).

[3] Yu's first novel, a semiautobiographical work titled Ishi ni Oyogu Sakana (石に泳ぐ魚, "The Fish Swimming in the Stone") published in the September 1994 issue of the literary journal Shinchō, became the focus of a legal and ethical controversy.

The publication of the novel in book form was blocked by court order, and some libraries restricted access to the magazine version.

[9] Yu has experienced racist backlash to her work because of her ethnic background, with some events at bookstores being canceled due to bomb threats.