author
active 1414-1451 Huan Ma
A fifteenth-century Chinese traveler and interpreter, he is best known for leaving one of the clearest firsthand accounts of the great Ming voyages across the Indian Ocean. His writing opens a vivid window onto the ports, peoples, and trade routes encountered during Zheng He's expeditions.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Ma Huan was a Chinese Muslim translator, traveler, and writer who accompanied Admiral Zheng He on several of the Ming treasure voyages in the early 1400s. Because he knew Arabic, he was especially valuable on journeys that brought the fleet into contact with communities around Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.
He is remembered above all for Yingya Shenglan (The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores), a travel account that describes the lands, customs, religions, products, and daily life he observed or learned about during these expeditions. The book has become an important historical source because it preserves a firsthand view of maritime Asia at a remarkable moment of long-distance exchange.
Although many details of his personal life remain uncertain, his work has had a long afterlife. Readers still turn to it for its concrete, curious, and wide-ranging portrait of the world connected by the Ming voyages.