Yao Sui

Yao Sui (1238–1313), writer of Chinese Sanqu poetry and official, was the nephew of the noted official Yao Shu (1203–1280) and uncle of the dramatist and sanqu poet Yao Shouzhong. At three he was orphaned. He was raised by his uncle Yao Shu. He began his studies with the scholar Xu Heng. At age twenty four he began his study of the Tang period prose masters and shortly thereafter began his thirty year career as an official, eventually becoming a member of the Hanlin Academy and various other appointments. He began work on the Veritable Records of Kublai Khan. The family had roots in the Manchurian province of Liaoning and subsequently relocated to Luoyang in Henan province. His formal collected writings of fifty chapters has survived, as well as a small collection of his sanqu lyrics, and other writings.