Wu Cheng'en has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is Monkey King.
Journey to the West
Summary
Journey to the West is one of the Chinese Noble Classics. In ancient China a magical monkey appears, creating chaos everywhere he goes. The only way to put his tricks and talents to good use is to make him protector of Xuanzang, a young and handsome monk determined to travel from China to India in search of precious scriptures. Monkey and his fellow disciples, Piggy and Sandy, have to protect Xuanzang from monsters and demons who think they can live forever just by taking bites out of the monk. Can Xuanzang and his loyal disciples reach India safely and find what they seek? Do they have enough confidence and courage to conquer the demons, both those lurking around them and those within their own hearts? Full of humour and adventure, Journey to the West is a story of self-discovery and the pursuit of excellence. Written by Chinese scholar Wu Cheng’en more than four hundred years ago, it reflects everyone’s pilgrimage toward truth, peace, and beauty. If you enjoy this, you can find three other Real Reads Chinese Classics: Dream of the Red Chamber, The Water Margin, and The Three Kingdoms.
©2011 Christine Sun (P)2013 Christine Sun
Monkey King
Summary
A Chinese Lord of the Rings and one of the all-time great fantasy novels - which Neil Gaiman has said "is in the DNA of 1.5 billion people" - now in a thrilling new translation A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. High-spirited and omni-talented, he amasses dazzling weapons and skills on his journey to immortality: a gold-hooped staff that can grow as tall as the sky and shrink to the size of a needle; the ability to travel 108,000 miles in a single somersault. A master of subterfuge, he can transform himself into whomever or whatever he chooses and turn each of his body's 84,000 hairs into an army of clones. But his penchant for mischief repeatedly gets him into trouble, and when he raids Heaven's Orchard of Immortal Peaches and gorges himself on the elixirs of the gods, the Buddha pins him beneath a mountain, freeing him only 500 years later for a chance to redeem himself: He is to protect the pious monk Tripitaka on his 14-year journey to India in search of precious Buddhist sutras that will bring enlightenment to the Chinese empire. Joined by two other fallen immortals - Pigsy, a rice-loving pig able to fly with its ears, and Sandy, a depressive man-eating river-sand monster - Monkey King undergoes 81 trials, doing battle with Red Boy, Princess Jade-Face, the Monstress Dowager, and all manner of dragons, ogres, wizards, and femmes fatales, navigating the perils of Fire-Cloud Cave, the River of Flowing Sand, the Water-Crystal Palace, and Casserole Mountain, and being serially captured, lacquered, sautéed, steamed, and liquefied, but always hatching an ingenious plan to get himself and his fellow pilgrims out of their latest jam. Monkey King: Journey to the West is at once a rollicking adventure, a comic satire of Chinese bureaucracy, and a spring of spiritual insight. With this new translation, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault and unerring sense for fun, into the hearts of millions of Americans.
©2021 Julia Lovell, translation (P)2021 Penguin Audio