The Journey to the West is a classical novel of China and one of the "Four Classical Novels" of China. The book tells the story of the Tang Dynasty mage learning from the West and shows the ancient theme of punishing evil and promoting good. The Journey to the West's book was written in the middle of the Ming Dynasty in the16th century. Since its publication, it has been widely circulated in China and around the world, and has been translated into many languages. The Journey to the West is a household name in China and even parts of Asia, among which the Monkey King, Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand and other characters and stories such as "Nayong Tiangong", "Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon" and "The Flame Mountain" are particularly familiar. For hundreds of years, The Journey to the West has been adapted into various local operas, as well as various versions of movies, TV series, cartoons and cartoons. In Japan and other Asian countries, there are also literary and artistic works with the Monkey King as the theme, with many styles and an amazing number. The author of The Journey to the West is generally regarded as Wu Cheng'en of the Ming Dynasty. Academic controversy about the author.

All the published editions of The Journey to the West are signed by Wu Cheng'en, but since the advent of The Journey to the West, there has been controversy about its author. The Journey to the West, which was circulated in the Ming Dynasty, has no signature in various versions. In The Journey to the West, the king of Qing Dynasty suggested that The Journey to the West was written by Qiu Chuji in Southern Song Dynasty. After this view was put forward, most scholars in Qing Dynasty agreed with it. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Ji Yun and others began to doubt this theory, thinking that The Journey to the West described the customs and habits of the Ming Dynasty in many places, and Qiu Chuji was a person at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty (a dynasty before the Ming Dynasty); In addition, Huai 'an dialect is used in many places in The Journey to the West, while Qiu Chuji has lived in North China all his life and never lived in Huai 'an. There are also Taoist priests and literati in Ming and Qing Dynasties who think that The Journey to the West is the book of Taoist alchemy. During the period of the Republic of China, Lu Xun, Hu Shi and others presumed that the author of The Journey to the West was Huai 'an Chengen according to the records of Huai 'an House in the Apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty and the theories of predecessors. In the late Republic of China, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after 1980, the research on The Journey to the West's authors has gradually become a hot spot. Some scholars still question Wu Cheng'en's authorship. The reason is that writing Journey to the West has never been mentioned in Wu Cheng'en's poems or friends' words. Secondly, Wu Cheng'en wrote down the fact of The Journey to the West in the Records of Huai 'an Prefecture, which did not indicate that it was romance or official history, but in general, romance and official history were not recorded in local chronicles; Thirdly, The Journey to the West in Wu Cheng'en was classified as a geographical category in the Bibliography of Qianqingtang written by Huang Yuji, a bibliophile in Qing Dynasty. So some people suggest that The Journey to the West was written by Qiu Chuji, or by his disciples. There are also a few mathematicians who believe that The Journey to the West was written by Li Chunfang, the "Prime Minister of Qing Ci" in the Ming Dynasty. However, due to the scarcity and far-fetched arguments, most scholars do not agree with this statement. On the other hand, the argument that Wu Cheng'en is the author of The Journey to the West seems to be more and more convincing. Mainly: First, Wu Cheng'en's personal situation fully conforms to the characteristics of the creators of Journey to the West. Second, it gives a more reasonable and practical explanation to all kinds of questions. Thirdly, the most convincing is the dialect study in The Journey to the West's text. After 1980, there was a breakthrough in this field, which almost irrefutably proved that Wu Cheng'en was the author of The Journey to the West. (For related research, please refer to Liu Yongye's works and Yan Jingchang's The Journey to the West's poetic rhyme and author. Therefore, it is generally believed that religion prevailed in the Ming Dynasty, and the biographies, legends and other religious legends and folk stories about master Xuanzang's Journey to the West in the Tang Dynasty were widely circulated in the society. It is in this social and cultural background that Wu Cheng'en created today according to the above biographies, legends and stories. After Wu Cheng'en's re-conception, organization and compilation, compared with previous biographies, legends, stories and comments, the novel The Journey to the West is not only richer in content, more complete and rigorous in plot, vivid and full in characters, more colorful in imagination and simple in language. More importantly, the novel The Journey to the West has reached an unprecedented height in ideological realm and artistic realm. Can be described as a master.