author
E Liu
1857–1909
Best known for the classic novel The Travels of Lao Can, this late Qing writer mixed sharp social criticism with a wide range of interests that included scholarship, business, and public affairs. His work is still remembered for its lively storytelling and its clear-eyed view of a troubled era.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in 1857 and known in English as Liu E, he was a Chinese writer and intellectual of the late Qing period. He is most closely associated with The Travels of Lao Can, a novel first serialized in the early 1900s that later became one of the best-known works of modern Chinese fiction in translation.
Liu E did far more than write fiction. Accounts of his life describe him as a scholar with interests in mathematics, medicine, archaeology, and water control, as well as a businessman and public-minded reformer. That unusually broad experience gave his writing a practical, observant quality and helped shape the novel's criticism of official corruption and social decline.
He died in 1909, but his reputation lasted well beyond his lifetime. Today he is remembered both as a novelist and as a vivid witness to the final years of the Qing dynasty.