Yu Zemin's new novel, Paper Fishbowl.

He writes in his memoir that he read more literary than medical books as a Beijing Medical University student.

His first years in Hungary were tough. He didn't have a stable job and was just beginning to learn the language. But local friends helped him.

"I was literally a drifter," he recalls.

"I ate and stayed with friends. At one point, I had a key chain with keys to lots of friends' homes."

He didn't study Hungarian in formal classes.

"Pubs and cafes were my school, and friends and dictionaries were my teachers."

Yu kept a diary during this period. He says the initial idea of his new novel was derived from stories about the people he encountered.

In 1992, Yu met University of Szeged professor Janos Herner, who introduced him to several Hungarian writers, including Gabor Karatson and Akos Szilagyi.

In 1998, Yu accompanied Laszlo Krasznahorkai as an interpreter during his China visit. His translation career began when he translated one of Krasznahorkai's short stories afterward. The Hungarian won the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.

Yu became known by Chinese readers through his translations of the works of Imre Kertesz, the late Hungarian novelist who won the Nobel in 2002.

"I really admire Yu Zemin for his translations of Hungarian writers," Beijing International Studies University literature professor Liu Yan says.

"Over the past 20 years, we've paid a lot of attention to foreign literature from major languages. But what Yu has done is very meaningful and cannot be substituted."