author
Pingzhong Kong
1044–1111
A Northern Song scholar-official and writer, remembered for lively anecdotal writing and a place in the long literary tradition linked to Confucius’s family. His surviving reputation rests especially on a taste for recording people, character, and conversation in vivid detail.
1 Audiobook
續世說
by Pingzhong Kong
About the author
Pingzhong Kong, often listed as Kong Pingzhong, was a writer and official of the Northern Song dynasty. Sources located during this search identify him as a descendant of Confucius, give his Chinese name as 孔平仲, and connect him with the literary culture of Jiangxi. They also agree that he passed the imperial examinations in 1065 and went on to hold a series of government posts.
He is best known today for Xu Shi Shuo (續世說), a work of anecdotes and character sketches. Project Gutenberg lists him as the author of that text, and biographical references describe him as a scholar, poet, and man of letters rather than only a career administrator.
Some basic biographical details are not consistent across the sources found here, including the exact form of his courtesy name and even the certainty of his birth and death dates, so it is best to treat 1044–1111 as a commonly cited range rather than a fully settled fact.