Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en, styled Ruzhong, was born about 1500 into a small merchant family at Shanyang, today Huai'an in Jiangsu. A bright child and a voracious reader, he loved unofficial histories, tales of the strange and myths above all, but failed the official examinations again and again and only in middle age became a tribute student. Late in life he served briefly as an assistant magistrate in Changxing, but, unwilling to bow to his superiors, soon resigned and went home, living by his pen and spending his last years in poverty. It is generally held that he wrote Journey to the West in these final years.