Hong Kong novelist, Jin Yong, Died at 94

  Writers

Louis Cha Jing-yong was born on February 6, 1924, and died on October 30, 2018.

He was better known by his pen name Jin Yong.

He was a Chinese wuxia (“martial arts and chivalry”) novelist and essayist.

Yong co-founded the Hong Kong daily newspaper Ming Pao in 1959 and served as its first editor-in-chief. He was Hong Kong’s most famous writer.

Yong’s wuxia novels have a widespread following in Chinese communities worldwide.

Yong’s 15 works written between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the greatest and most popular wuxia writers ever.

Before his death, he was the best-selling Chinese author, and over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide (not including an unknown number of pirated copies).

Reportedly, The Oxford Guide to Contemporary World Literature, Jin’s novels are considered to be of very high quality and are able to appeal to both highbrow and lowbrow tastes.

His works have the unusual ability to transcend geographical and ideological barriers separating Chinese communities of the world, achieving a greater success than any other contemporary writer.

Yong’s novels have been translated into many languages including English, French, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Malay and Indonesian.

Yong was very popular outside of Chinese-speaking areas, as a result of the numerous adaptations of his works into films, television series, comics, and video games.

Named after him is the asteroid 10930 Jinyong (1998 CR2).

He is named along with Gu Long and Liang Yusheng as the “Three Legs of the Tripod of Wuxia”.

Jin Yong passed away at 94 years old.

LEAVE A COMMENT

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.