20世紀八十年代中期以后,余華大量閱讀卡夫卡、福克納等人的現代主義小說,深受其影響,文學觀念發生了很大變化,他把西方現代主義小說的技巧和中國經驗以及經典文學傳統融合起來,創作發生了巨大的變化,取得了巨大的成就。新世紀以來,余華的小說創作越來越回歸傳統,越來越中國化和民族性,但不是很成功,這讓余華很困惑。余華的成功和困惑具有代表性,一定程度上反映了新時期以來中國文學發展的成功和困惑。

After the mid-1980s,Yu Hua did a lot of reading on works by Kafka,Faulkner and many other modernist writers,and was greatly influenced,thus changing his literary concept thereafter. He integrated the techniques of Western modernist novels with Chinese experience as well as classical literary tradition,which led to great changes and great achievements in his creation. Since the new century,Yu Hua’s novel creation has gradually returned to a more traditional style,which is more Chinese and more national,but not very successful,which makes Yu Hua confused. His success and confusion are typical,and to some extent,it reflects the success and confusion of Chinese literature since the new period.