Quick Facts
Biography
Wu Jingzi (simplified Chinese: 吴敬梓; traditional Chinese: 吳敬梓; pinyin: Wú Jìngzǐ; Wade–Giles: Wu Ching-tzu, 1701—January 11, 1754) 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 the famous satirical novel Rulin Waishi (External History of Confucian School), known in English as The Scholars.
Biography
Wu was born into a well-to-do family. His father Wu Linqi (吳霖起) 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 (颜元) and Li Gong (李塨). 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.