中国当代先锋文学，专指1985年到1990年之间，在中国当代文坛上以马原、孙甘露、洪峰、格非、莫言、余华等为代表的作家，借鉴西方现代主义和后现代主义文艺创作策略，以极端的美学追求、以规模化的创作实践，对中国传统现实主义创作进行内容革新与形式颠覆的一种文学现象。1980年代，余华凭借极端的“暴力”、“死亡”叙述和大胆的形式实验，成为重要的先锋作家。进入1990年代，他放弃了先前的先锋立场，向传统现实主义文学回归。余华之所以创作转型，既有市场经济下文学边缘化的因素，又根源于先锋文学的内部矛盾以及其与作者由来已久的紧张关系。在“先锋”概念的生成过程中，就业已隐藏着两重内在悖论——自由与服从的对立，艺术派先锋与政治派先锋的对立。此外，多元文化合法性的确立，也使“先锋”日益丧失自身存在的理由。余华与先锋文学的结盟极具偶然性，先锋文学意外的成就了他，可是随着社会阅历的丰富和创作经验的积累，当他日益具有创作的自由自觉性时便不可避免地发生创作转型。余华通过前期的先锋创作，对传统现实主义特别是当代中国被政治异化的现实主义文学进行了颠覆。进入1990年代之后，余华扬弃先前的先锋创作，为传统现实主义文学注入新的血液。他的现实主义创作具有民族性和时代性的双重特性，然而却缺乏批判性和战斗性。

Chinese contemporary avant-garde literature was the literature phenomena between 1985 and 1990．In this period of time，a crowd of writers such as Ma Yuan, Sun Gan-lu, Hong Feng, Ge Fei, Mo Yan, Yu Hua and so on, profited from the modernism literature and the post- modernism literature, and rebelled against the content and form of the Chinese traditional realism literature by the extreme esthetics pursue and the scale creation practice.During 1980’s, Yu Hua became one of the important avant-garde literature writers through the bold form experiment and the extreme narration about “violence” and “death”. In 1990’s, he gave up the formerly avant-garde standpoint, and returned to the traditional realism literature．Yu Hua’s creation reform root to the internal contradictions of the avant-garde literature and the long-standing anxious relation between it and author. The avant-garde literature had two pairs of intrinsic paradox：Free and obey, art and politic. In addition, the multicultural environments also caused the avant-garde literature impossible to exist. The alliance between Yu Hua and the avant-garde literature is unstable. Yu Hua’s creation reform was necessary following his growth.Through the avant-garde literature, Yu Hua rebelled against the traditional realism literature, especially the realism literature catabolized by politics. In 1990’s, Yu Hua developed the good and discarded the bad about the formerly avant-garde creation. He poured the new blood into the tradition realism literature. His realism creation was national and advanced, however actually lacked the critique and the fight.