Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en grew up in Huai'an, a river town in eastern China, in the years of the Ming dynasty. His father ran a small shop, but the boy loved books and folk tales. He also loved the strange stories older people told about gods and ghosts. Everyone said he was clever. That cleverness never carried him far in the exam halls that decided a Chinese man's career. He kept failing the civil service tests, and he did not win a modest official post until he was already old. He served briefly, disliked the pettiness of office life, and went home to write.