Wu Cheng'en
Hu Shih, literary scholar and former Ambassador to the United States, wrote that the novel was thought to have been written and published anonymously by Wu Cheng'en. He reasoned that the people of Wu's hometown attributed it early on to Wu, and kept records to that effect as early as 1625; thus, claimed Ambassador Hu, "Journey to the West" was one of the earliest Chinese novels for which the authorship is officially documented.