Louis Cha, known with his pen name Jin Yong is one of the most influential modern Chinese-language novelists. Co-founder of the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao, which he started in 1959, he was the paper's first editor-in-chief and held this position until 1993, when he retired. He has also written and directed two films. He was also Hong Kong's most famous writer and is named along with Gu Long and Liang Yusheng as the "Three Legs of the Tripod of Wuxia".
Cha's fiction, which are of the Wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry"? genre, has a widespread following in Chinese-speaking areas, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and United States. His fourteen novels and a short fiction composed between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the finest Wuxia writers ever. He is currently the best-selling Chinese author alive; over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide (not including unknown number of bootleg copies)
Cha's works have been translated into Korean, English, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Burmese, and Thai, and he has many fans abroad as well, thanks to the numerous adaptations of his works made into films, television series, manhua (Chinese comics), and video games. He was also a recipient of the "Grand Bauhinia Medal" in 2000, the highest award under the Hong Kong honors and awards system. It is to recognize the selected person's lifelong and highly significant contribution to the well-being of Hong Kong.
