Monkey King

One of the greatest classics of Chinese literature, in a new translation by the award-winning Julia Lovell

One of China's Four Great Classical Novels, Monkey King was written anonymously during the Ming dynasty and is most commonly attributed to Wu Cheng'en, the son of a silk-shop clerk from east China. It recounts a Tang-dynasty monk's quest for Buddhist scriptures, accompanied by an omni-talented kung-fu Monkey King called Sun Wukong; a rice-loving divine pig; and a depressive man-eating river-sand monster.

Comparable to The Canterbury Tales or Don Quixote, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment.

About the Author

Very little is known about Wu Ch-eng-en (c. 1505-80). He was a Chinese novelist and poet of the Ming Dynasty, and is considered by many to be the author of Journey to the West ( Monkey King), one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.