The book is published in 15 92, and it's anonymous. Nobody at the time claims to know who, who the author is. The name on the spine to day is wuchangan. Wuchangan was a real person. He was alive from about 15 o six 15 82. And you think he did it im i'm pretty sceptical. It is my own take. I mean, with with the versions around, he kind of just mew, did he whistle it? Otte,. there was a huge amount of stuff. There were earlier versions, there were plays. And it may not have been one single person.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great novels of China’s Ming era, and perhaps the most loved. Written in 1592, it draws on the celebrated travels of a real monk from China to India a thousand years before, and on a thousand years of retellings of that story, especially the addition of a monkey as companion who, in the novel, becomes supersimian. For most readers the monk, Tripitaka, is upstaged by this irrepressible Monkey with his extraordinary powers, accompanied by the fallen but recovering deities, Pigsy and Sandy.
The image above, from the caricature series Yoshitoshi ryakuga or Sketches by Yoshitoshi, is of Monkey creating an army by plucking out his fur and blowing it into the air, and each hair becomes a monkey-warrior.
With
Julia Lovell
Professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London
Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu
Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
And
Craig Clunas
Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Trinity College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson