The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s LegacySima Qian (first century BCE), the author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), is Chinas earliest and best known historian, and his Letter to Ren An is the most famous letter in Chinese history. In the letter, Sima Qian explains his decision to finish his lifes work, the first comprehensive history of China, instead of honorably committing suicide following his castration for deceiving the emperor. In the twentieth and twenty first centuries, some