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

[13] 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.

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.

For example, 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.”[16] One of the key aspects of his writing is in dealing with the absurd.

Yu Hua's work is very traditional, with psychologized storylines that investigate and illustrate the challenges of cultural disintegration and identity loss[4] and his stories are often set in small towns during historical periods that he experienced including China under Chairman Mao's rule,[19][20] the Civil War and Cultural Revolution,[21][8] and post Mao capitalist China.

Yu Hua is known for his brutal descriptions of violence, cruelty and death[6] as well as themes surrounding "the plight of China's underclasses" as seen in Chronicle of a Blood Merchant.

[22] When he began focusing on more chaotic themes in Brothers, Yu Hua admitted his belief that despite his past modeling after Kafka's novels, "the essential nature of writing was to free yourself.

[6] Yu Hua also frequently engages in diverse attitudes of aesthetic modernity in his works, earning him the reputation of being a catalyst.

After his adjustments, he focused on injecting the right amount of modern ideologies into his work, which is primarily constructed on the narration of "realistic societies".

With its complex foundations, Yu Hua's work has been successful at constructing mysterious and rich literary universes in both fiction and non-fiction.

[27] Yu Hua is a contemporary avant-garde writer formally introduced to the literary world with the publication of "On the Road at Eighteen".

It describes the feeling that the world has shredded its own integrity, and thus unveils a broken traditional view of reality based on surrealism.

[28] Among avant-garde novelists, Yu Hua is exemplary in that he is able to combine the ludicrous together with poetic violence to challenge the philosophical idea of humanism.

[28] Yu Hua has deepened the rational reflection of human beings on the situation of their lives in the form of novels, which has caused a lot of shock and attention in the literary world and among the readers.

In the late 1980s, Yu Hua was regarded as one of the most promising avant-garde or post-trendy writers, and many critics considered him perhaps the best example of Chinese yuan novels or post-modern writing.

In the late 1990s, he plowed through a series of short stories, novellas and novels in which his style seemed to shift slightly toward the traditional "psychoanalytic" narrative.

[28] Yu Hua's novels in this period make a deep and detailed analysis of human evil and violence, instinct and desire, tradition and history.

It features his most notable short stories such as "Leaving Home at Eighteen", "Classical Love", "World Like Mist", "The Past and the Punishments", "1986", "Blood and Plum Blossoms", "The Death of a Landlord",[31] and "Boy in the Twilight" along with 13 other works.

[3] Jeffrey Wasserstrom of the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote, "When people ask me to suggest a novel dealing with the rise and rule of China's Communist Party, I point them toward To Live, which is available in a lively translation by Michael Berry and presents pivotal stages of revolutionary history from the perspective of everyman characters, or Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, which has similar virtues and a slightly larger quotient of humor".

The movie and novel emphasize two ways of "living" through exposing harsh realities underneath the facade of life and pondering the significance of existing.

[49] The television adaptation followed the tragedies in the original storyline more closely, avoiding the casting of big names in order to effectively portray the simplicity of civilian life in revolution era China.

In 2015, Chronicles of a Blood Merchant was adapted into a Korean language film,[50] both directed by and starring actor Ha Jung-woo.