Ngo Tat To, the author of the earlier excerpt on examinations, was born in 1894 in Loc Ha Commune, Tu Son District, Bac Ninh Province (now Mai Lam Commune, Dong Anh District, Ha Noi). Proficient in both Han script and French, he participated in one of the last royal examinations. Before the August Revolution in 1945, he was mainly a writer and a reporter and took part in his commune's Liberation Committee. With the beginning of the French War in 1946, he joined the National Association for Cultural Salvation and went to a military base in the Northern Resistance Zone (Viet Bac).
There, he headed the Viet Bac Branch of Literature and Arts, writing for Cuu Quoc (National Salvation) newspaper, and Van Nghe (Literature and Arts) magazine. He produced a number of excellent works including: The History of Wu and Yue Countries in the Spring and Autumn Period (Ngo Viet Xuan Thu, translated, 1929), De Tham (historical biography, 1935), When the Light Went Out (Tat Den, novel, 1927), The Tent and the Bamboo Bed (Leu chong, novel-reportage, 1937), The Tang Poetry (Duong thi, collected and translated in selection, 1940), The Book of Changes (Kinh Dich, annotated, 1953). Ngo Tat To died on April 20, 1954, in Bac Giang. Thanks to his significant contribution to Viet Nam's literature, he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize of Literature and Arts in 1996.