Author: Cheng’en, Wu
Classic fiction (pre c 1945)
Published on 25 September 2025 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom.
Paperback | 384 pages
128 x 196 x 20 | 262g
One of the world's greatest fantasy novels, and a timeless classic of Chinese literatureOne 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.
