active 317-322 Bao Gan

Gan Bao was a Chinese historian and writer of the Eastern Jin period, generally dated to around the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. Sources describe him as a learned scholar from Xincai in present-day Henan, and note that he served at court during the reign of Emperor Yuan of Jin.

He is best known for compiling Soushen Ji (In Search of the Supernatural), a landmark collection of strange tales, spirit stories, and reports of uncanny events. The book became one of the most important early examples of zhiguai literature — brief accounts of the marvelous and unexplained — and had a lasting influence on later Chinese storytelling.

Traditional sources also connect him with historical writing and other scholarly works, though some of those texts are lost or survive only in part. What remains clear is that his name endures because he treated folklore and the supernatural seriously enough to preserve them, giving later readers a vivid window into the beliefs and imagination of his time.