Richard Flanagan and Yu Hua discuss writing and inspiration

It is Saturday, when Australian writer Richard Flanagan meets Yu Hua for the first time during an event at a Beijing bookstore. They seem to find a lot in common and any third person is unnecessary in their exchanges. They just know the right questions to ask one another.

Yu, the author of the Chinese novels To Live and Brothers, speaks of the many things that made him the writer he is today. He is neither reluctant to praise Flanagan's Man Booker-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, saying that, from its rhythm, he knows how well the story is told and structured.

The authors have been inspired by William Faulkner and Franz Kafka.