In 1977, after graduating from high school, Yu Hua worked as a dentist in the department of dentistry.
And being a doctor is also because of the influence of family parents.
As the son of a surgeon, Yu Hua spent most of his childhood in hospitals.
When my father came out of the operating room, his white coat was always stained with blood, and he was carrying buckets of bloody things in his hands.
In the thick smell of blood, he chewed on the smell of death, but he felt accustomed to it.
What is even more surprising is that Yu Hua's childhood lived in the hospital dormitory, but the opposite of the dormitory is the morgue, every midnight, he can always hear the sound of howling and crying, the little he has long been accustomed to this kind of life, and even took a nap in the morgue!
When the dentist pulled out 10,000 teeth in 5 years, he earned 15.5 million by 120,000 words!
Yu Hua recalled that when he was a dentist, he dealt with the patient's teeth all day long, and felt that the human mouth was the most scenic place in the world. When he was working, he often saw from the window that there was a person on the street outside who looked very laid-back, as if he was fine, and he was very envious of this life.
So he walked out the door, asked what the man was doing, and replied that he worked at the cultural center.
Yu Hua asked how to work at the cultural center, and the man replied that he could draw, play musical instruments, or write!
After Yu Hua returned home and thought about it, he didn't have that talent for painting and musical instruments, otherwise he would write!
So he began to practice writing hard, and from then on he went to the road of writing! He was 22 years old.
Prior to this, Yu Hua had been a dentist for 5 years and had 10,000 teeth pulled out before and after.
Yu Hua's writing path at the beginning was not smooth, every day the postman would throw the rejection from the outside of the wall into you, and Yu Hua continued to write in the face of repeated failures.
It took ten years to write this, and finally "Alive" was born!
"Teenagers go wandering, middle-aged people want to dig up hiding, and old people become monks."
This is a passage from the novel "Alive".
A few short words, without saying a word of sorrow, but it makes people choke on their hearts for a long time, as if they are lost.
Yu Hua's "Alive" sold more than 20 million copies, and Mo Yan sighed:
Yu Hua's books are half as small as mine, but their influence is half as great as mine.
"Alive" is only 120,000 words short, but its influence is far greater than many novels.
In 1998, chinese writer Yu Hua won this year's Grizana Carver Literary Prize in Italy for "Alive", and he was not only the first Chinese writer to receive this award, but also the only Chinese writer to receive this award.
A young writer in his thirties ascended to the world literary scene, and the Yuhua fever in Chinese mouth became the Yuhua fever in the world.
"Alive" is the most immortal page in Yu Hua's life!
It never occurred to me that a person who grew up in a hospital and watched death in the world write "Alive.".
Later, Zhang Yimou found Yu Hua and wanted to shoot his "Mistake by the River", at that time, "Alive" was not yet completed, and when the two people met, Yu Hua showed Zhang Yimou the unfinished "Alive", Zhang Yimou slapped the table and said to shoot "Alive"!
In the 2019 Rich List of Chinese Writers, Yu Hua ranked second - with a 120,000-word "Alive", he received 15.5 million royalties!
In this regard, Mo Yan commented on his former roommate:
Yu Hua is the writer who writes the least and makes the most money, he is a genius!
How great is Alive?
Alive is a book full of death but also more life-threatening tension.
Fugui, who is old in the dragon clock, leads an equally old buffalo and reminisces about the past.
He spoke plainly of the names of his deceased relatives, of the time of war and exile, of the initial prosperity, of the ultimate loneliness.
It is an indescribable absurdity, a kind of truth carved into the bones and blood, and even more a kind of nothingness that eventually returns to dust and earth.
Le Monde said of it:
People remember Yu Hua's novels as sharp and thoughtful. "Alive" is his good at describing the psychology of dilemma, putting the protagonist on the cusp of history. He was both Hemingway and Stendhal.
After Lao Gu finished reading, the biggest feeling was that it was really good to be alive!
Being born as a human being is already a blessing in disguise.
Because far from the turbulent times of the last century, there was no hunger and hardship, Fugui's life made me shudder when I closed the book, and I felt some trepidation in my heart.
Suddenly, I found that the ruthlessness and cruelty of real life may be far more tragic than I thought.
Born to be human, it is lucky to be alive.
Yu Hua once wrote in the preface:
"Alive" also tells how people can endure great suffering, just like a Chinese idiom: a thousand guns and a hair. Let a hair bear the weight of thirty thousand pounds, it is not broken. ”
If you can only read one book in your lifetime, the first choice is "Alive"
It tells you the meaning of being alive, teaches you how to live better, and takes you through the life and death and sorrow and joy of this world.
Living may be experiencing the ordinary, but there are many people in the world who even want to live!
What we can do is to feel the changes in this world, feel the warmth and cold, feel the life and death, so as not to be in vain in the world!
"Alive" is suitable for any of us, when you feel life, when you are confused, when you suffer from difficulties, you will find the meaning of living when you look at it, and you can absorb a strong spiritual force!