Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en was born in Huai'an, Jiangsu, into a family that had slid from scholarly rank into small trade, and spent decades failing the imperial examinations despite a local reputation for brilliance and wit. He finally secured a minor magistrate's post late in life, only to be dismissed amid accusations of corruption and return home poor.

His authorship of Journey to the West was not firmly established until early-twentieth-century scholarship matched a local gazetteer's mention of his lost manuscript to the anonymously published novel. The book itself elaborates centuries of legend grown up around the real monk Xuanzang's seventh-century pilgrimage to India for Buddhist scripture, adding the irrepressible immortal monkey who has since eclipsed the historical pilgrim in fame.

Wu died in relative obscurity, never seeing his novel credited to him in print; it has since become the most adapted story in Chinese popular culture, endlessly restaged in opera, film, television, and animation.