| Chinese literature goes back thousands of years, | | | | produced in China throughout the ages. The Yiwen |
| from the dynastic court records to novels that | | | | Leiju encyclopedia was completed by Ouyang Xun in |
| became popular during the Ming Dynasty | | | | 624 during the Tang Dynasty, with the help of |
| (1368-16440). During the Tang Dynasty (618-907) | | | | scholars Liinghu Defen and Chen Shuda. |
| woodblock printing was invented, and along with | | | | China has a rich tradition of literature that has |
| movable type printing that was introduced during the | | | | continued through the ages and continues to the |
| Song Dynasty (960-2179) this enabled the spread of | | | | present day through post Maoist writers. Chinese |
| written knowledge among the literate Chinese. | | | | language literature has also flourished in the diaspora - |
| At the beginning of the Gonghe regency (841BC) the | | | | in South East Asia, the United States, and Europe. |
| Chinese began to keep detailed court records. | | | | China is the largest publisher of books, magazines and |
| Perhaps the definitive work in early Chinese writing | | | | newspapers in the world. In book publishing alone, |
| was the Shiji, a narrative history of Chinese, written | | | | some 128,800 new titles of books were published in |
| by the Han Dynasty court historian Sima Qian | | | | 2005, according to the General Administration of |
| (145BC-90BC) and completed about 389BC. | | | | Press and Publication. There are more than 600 |
| The oldest extant dictionary in China is the Erya, | | | | literary journals across the country. Living and writing |
| dated to the 3rd century BC, anonymously written | | | | in France but continuing to write mainly in Chinese, |
| but with later commentary by the historian Guo Pu | | | | Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese writer to win |
| (276-324). There were also large encyclopedias | | | | the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000. |