Jiji Shen

Born around 740 and thought to have died around 800, Shen Jiji was a Tang-dynasty fiction writer and scholar. Sources describe him as being born in what is now Zhejiang, and note that he gained an official post through the patronage of the statesman Yang Yan.

When Yang Yan was demoted in 781, Shen Jiji also fell from favor and was sent to a minor posting. Even so, his literary reputation endured, especially through two celebrated stories written in literary Chinese: Renshi zhuan (Miss Jen) and Zhen zhong ji (The World Inside a Pillow).

He is remembered as one of the notable early masters of chuanqi, the Tang tradition of richly crafted prose tales. His surviving work is admired for its dreamlike atmosphere, moral irony, and lasting influence on later Chinese fiction.