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Monkey King

Journey to the West
By Wu Ch'eng-en and Wu Cheng’en
Penguin Classics
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Brief Description
One of the greatest classics of Chinese literature 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... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3000
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One of the greatest classics of Chinese literature

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.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780143138938

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 July 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Translated by Julia Lovell

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 35.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 500g

Pages: 384

Collections

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About the Author

Wu Cheng'en (Author) Very little is known about Wu Cheng'en (c. 1505-80), although he is believed to have held the post of District Magistrate for a time. He had a reputation as a good poet, but only a few rather commonplace verses of his survive in an anthology of Ming poetry and in a local gazetteer. Julia Lovell (Translator) Julia Lovell is the translator of The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China- The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, and is the author of Maoism, for which she won the 2019 Cundhill History Prize, and The Opium War, for which she won the Jan Michalski Prize. She is Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London, and writes about China for The Guardian, Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in Cambridge.

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