Da Yu

Yu Da, who also wrote under the name Muzhenshanren, was a Qing-dynasty Chinese novelist from Changzhou in present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu. The details of his birth year are unclear, but library records and scholarly sources agree that he died in 1884.

He is known above all for Qinglou meng, a 64-chapter novel completed in 1878. The book belongs to the late-Qing tradition of fiction about courtesan culture and city life, and it is often noted for echoing the prestige of Dream of the Red Chamber while moving in a very different social world.

Very little firmly documented biographical information seems to survive about him in widely accessible sources. Because of that, he is remembered mainly through his writing rather than through a well-recorded life story.