Li Ruzhen

(c. 1763 - 1830)

Born near Beijing in 1763, Li Ruzhen failed to pass all but the lowest level of the Imperial Civil Service Examinations due to his objecting to learning the “eight-legged essay” composition style used on the test. Li spent fifteen years writing Flowers, a hundred-chapter satirical fantasy novel set in the Tang dynasty in which the novel’s protagonists voyage to the Country of Gentlemen, the Country of Witches, and the Country of Two-Faced People.