Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en was a Chinese writer of the Ming dynasty, living roughly from 1500 to 1582, traditionally credited as the author of "Journey to the West" ("Xiyouji"), one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The novel is a sprawling, fantastical account loosely inspired by the real seventh-century pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang to India in search of Buddhist scriptures, reimagined as a comic and adventurous journey featuring the monk's supernatural companions, most famously the rebellious, shape-shifting Monkey King, Sun Wukong. Wu Cheng'en himself held only minor local government positions during his career and was better known in his own lifetime as a poet than as a novelist, and the attribution of "Journey to the West" to him, though the standard view since the twentieth century, rests on indirect evidence and is still debated by some scholars given the novel was originally published anonymously. Regardless of the authorship question, the novel itself has become one of the most widely read and adapted works of Chinese literature, deeply embedded in Chinese popular culture and known throughout East Asia in countless retellings.