Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072) was a Chinese author and statesman. A Confucian scholar-official, he played a distinguished role in government and also excelled as essayist, poet, and historian. His influence on the development of Sung literature was immense.

Though his ancestral home was Luling, Kiangsi, Ou-yang Hsiu was born in Mienchow, in present-day Szechwan. He lost his father at the age of four and was brought up in Suichow, in what is now Hupei, under the protection of an uncle. At the age of 10 he discovered Han Yü, the great T'ang writer whose prose in the "ancient style" (ku-wen) and somewhat colloquial poetry were then out of fashion, and aspired to his achievement. In time Ou-yang became the most influential prose writer since Han Yü, establishing ku-wen as the dominant style for all prose writers during the Sung and afterward, and one of the shapers of Sung...