Wu Cheng'en

呉が『西遊記』の作者である可能性が高いことが、彼の名声の主な根拠となっている。この小説は1592年に匿名で出版され、呉は他の著作でこの作品に言及していない。^{[ 3 ]}呉が匿名で出版したのは、当時、小説が俗悪な文学として悪評を受けていたため、よくあることだったと考えられている。中国の文学界では、秦、漢、唐の古典文学を模倣し、古典中国語で書くという風潮があった。^{[ 1 ]}しかし、呉は晩年、この風潮に逆らい、『西遊記』を口語で書いた。3世紀以上にわたり、中国のほとんどの人々は作者を知らなかったが、彼の故郷の人々は早くからこの小説を彼に帰していた。^{[ 3 ]}

しかし、20世紀初頭、胡適とその弟子たちは清朝の記録の文献分析と研究を行い、呉が作者であると示唆した。^{[ 1 ]}当時駐米大使であった胡博士は、アーサー・ウェイリーの要約版『猿』の序文で、呉の故郷の1625年の地誌（一種の地方史）が呉を作者としていると報告した。 ^{[ 3 ] [ 5 ]}『明人伝辞典』は、「この小説の作者の正体は依然として疑問の余地がある」とし、「おそらくこの誤った帰属がなければ、呉は忘れ去られたままだっただろう」と述べている。^{[ 6 ]}

Brown University China literature scholar David Lattimore said: "The Ambassador's confidence was quite unjustified. What the gazetteer says is that Wu wrote something called The Journey to the West. It mentions nothing about a novel. The work in question could have been any version of our story, or something else entirely."^[7] Translator W. J. F. Jenner points out that although Wu had knowledge of Chinese bureaucracy and politics, the novel itself doesn't include any political details that "a fairly well-read commoner could not have known."^[4] Furthermore, it is unknown how much of the novel was created, and how much was simply compiled and edited, since much of the legend behind Journey to the West already existed in folk tales.^[4]

Anthony C. Yu, in his introduction to his complete translation, states that the identity of the author, as with so many other major works of Chinese fiction, "remains unclear" but that Wu remains "the most likely" author.^[8]

In addition to Journey to the West, Wu wrote numerous poems and stories (including the novel A Record of the Tripods of Emperor Yu 禹鼎记, which includes a preface by Wu), although most have been lost. Some of his work survives because, after his death, a family member gathered as many manuscripts as he could find and compiled them into four volumes, entitled Remaining Manuscripts of Mr. Sheyang 射阳先生存稿.^[1] Some of his poetry was included in contemporary anthologies such as A Digest of Ming Poetry and A Record of Ming Poetry.^[1]

Both his poetry and his prose have been described as "stubborn" and critical of society's corruption, and in one of his few surviving poems Wu describes himself as having a "defiant spirit".^[1] Wu's poetry focused on the expression of emotions, and for this reason his work has been compared to that of Li Bai,^[9] although even the poems that he published with his name attached still were not quite modeled on the classical styles (although they were not as "vulgar" as Journey to the West).^[1] In addition to using his writing to critique society, Wu also took pride in the worldly nature of his work, as opposed to the more fantastic writings of some contemporaries; in the preface to A Record of the Tripods of Emperor Yu (禹鼎志) he wrote, "My book does not just deal with the supernatural; it deals with the foibles of men too."^[1]