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), 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)
• Mao Zedong (d. 1976), poet
• 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-)