15 Facts About Wu Jianren

Wu Jianren, known as Wu Woyao was a Chinese writer of the late Qing period.

Wu Jianren is a representative figure of modern Chinese novel for his innovation and technique.

Wu Jianren was writing modern fiction at least a decade before Lu Xun, and was ahead of his time in his use of narrators and a centralized character.

From 1902 to 1910, Wu Jianren wrote the most articles in the group of writers who responded to Liang Qichao's "revolution of Chinese novel".

Wu Jianren was born in 1866, in Foshan, Guangdong province.

Wu Jianren began school when he was eight, then enrolled in Foshan Academy at the age of 12.

Wu Jianren lived in poverty since his father passed away in 1882, when he was 17 years old.

In 1883, at age 18 Wu Jianren moved to Shanghai and began working as a waiter in a tea house and a clerk in Jiangnan Manufacture General Bureau.

Wu Jianren never became rich and died in October 1910 due to the poverty and overwork.

Between 1902 and 1910, Wu Jianren start to publish his work.

Wu Jianren used the knowledge that he learned in traditional Chinese study to create many great pieces of Novels-poetry, anecdotes, fiction criticism and joke collections.

Wu Jianren wrote novels for an audience who did not receive a classical education, and used everyday vernacular speech in his works.

Wu Jianren recorded stories from newspapers that he could use as a source in his work within a notebook.

Wu Jianren sometime employed a prologue to help develop the fiction scene.

Some scholars think Wu Jianren's work was inspired by Western translated novels.