List of Chinese writers

This is a list of noted or famous  Chinese writers. (The list is sorted by when they died; those who are alive, are farther down the list.)

 Qin dynasty and before 

 Sunzi (or Sun Tzu) (d. 496 BC), writer of non-fiction (military strategy)
 Mengzi (d. 289 BC), writer of non-fiction (Philosophy)

 Han dynasty and later

 Sima Qian (d. 90 BC), writer of non-fiction (History)
 Zhang Heng (d. 139), poet
 Sun Tzu (mathematician) (his work was not written before the 3rd century)
 Cao Cao (d. 220), poet

 Tang dynasty and later

Li Bai (d. 762), poet
Du Fu (d. 770), poet
Wen Tingyun (d. 870), poet

 Song dynasty and later 

 Shen Kuo (d. 1095)
 Mi Fu (d. 1107)
 Zhu Xi (d. 1200)
 Guo Shoujing (d. 1316)

 Ming dynasty 

 Wu Cheng'en (d. 1582), novelist, poet

 Qing dynasty 

 Cao Xueqin (d. 1763 or 1764),The precise dating of Cao Xueqin's birth and death is a matter of heated debate amongst Chinese Redologists. It would be fair however to confine Cao's birth date to between 1715 and 1724, as attested by the elegiac poems by his friends – Duncheng (敦誠) and Zhang Yiquan (張宜泉) – which stated Cao was forty and nearly fifty respectively when he died. A much fuller discussion can be found under the relevant sections in Chen Weizhao's Hongxue Tongshi ("A History of Redology"), Shanghai People's Publishing Press, 2005, pp. 194–197; 348–349; 657–662.Briggs, Asa (ed.) (1989) The Longman Encyclopedia, Longman, Zhang Yiquan: Hong lou meng volume 1. p.2 cited in the introduction to The Dream of the Red Chamber. by Li-Tche Houa and Jacqueline Alézaïs.La Pléiade 1979 famous for novel (Dream of the Red Chamber)
 Wei Yuan (d. 1856), poet
 Lin Shu (d. 1924), translator

Modern period

Xu Zhimo (d. 1931), poet
Lu Xun (d. 1936), writer (short stories and non-fiction)
Xu Xu, aka Hsu Yu (徐訏; d. 1980), novelist
Wang Xiaobo (d. 1997), novelist, non-fiction writer
Iris Chang (d. 2004), Chinese-American non-fiction writer, journalist
Phuntsok Wangyal (d. 2014), he and others started the Tibetan Communist Party
Zhang Xianliang (d. 2014), novelist, poet, non-fiction writer
Chang Ch'ung-ho or Zhang Chonghe (d. 2015), Chinese-American poet
Chen Zhongshi (d. 2016), novelist, short story writer
Yang Jiang (d. 2016), playwright, non-fiction writer, translator
Liu Xiaobo (d. 2017), got a Nobel Peace Prize; one of the writers of Charter 08
Zhou Youguang (d. 2017), non-fiction writer
Jao Tsung-I (d. 2018), poet
Li Ao (d. 2018), moved to Taiwan, 96 of his books were banned in Taiwan until 1991.
Liu Yichang or or Lau Yee Cheung (d. 2018), novelist, editor, publisher
Jin Yong (d. 2018), novelist, non-fiction writer
Sogyal Rinpoche (d. 2019), writer of non-fiction (spirituality)
Zhang Jie (writer) (d. 2022)

Qi Xin (1926-), mother of the 11th chief of Communist Party of China; writer
Gao Xingjian (1940-), novelist, playwright, translator
Yang Jisheng (1940-), journalist, non-fiction writer

Mo Yan (1955-)
Tie Ning (1957-)

References

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Category:China-related_lists