Wu Jingzi


Wu Jingzi was a Chinese scholar and writer who was born in the city now known as Quanjiao, Anhui and who died in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Wu Jingzi is the author of a famous satirical novel titled Rulin waishi or The Unofficial History of the Scholars.

Biography

Wu was born into a well-to-do family. His father Wu Linqi was a Qing official, but Wu Jingzi himself met with no success. He attempted the Jinshi examination, but placed only at the county level. Poverty stricken by the age of thirty-two, he moved to Nanjing, where he met and acquainted himself with many government officials.
Wu's family may have had ties to the famous philosophers Yan Yuan and Li Gong. The philosophers emphasized the importance of ritual in Neo-Confucianism and may have influenced Wu's novel.
While in Nanjing, in 1740, he started his famous novel Rulin waishi. There is a museum in his honor located in his hometown of Quanjiao county, now Chuzhou.