A HERO BORN

Kung fu epic from one of the world’s bestselling authors, translated for the first time into English.

Jin Yong, the pen name of Louis Cha, was a Hong Kong–based journalist who died last year at 94. Between 1955 and 1972 he wrote 14 novels in the genre called wuxia, historical fiction with lots of martial arts brawling and “the clanging of metal.” In this book, the first of the Legends of the Condor Heroes tetralogy published in 1957, he puts all the conventions of the genre to work. A somewhat simple-minded young man named Guo Jing, raised by his mother after his father’s untimely death, grows up in a world torn apart by palace intrigues and stewing political factions behind the Great Wall. On the other side, there’s a vast Mongol army led by none other than Genghis Khan, or Temujin, who enjoys a good massacre: “His heart quickened, and a laugh bubbled up from within. The earth shook with the shouts of his men as they withdrew from the bloody field.” Fighting their way across the landscape with Guo are bands of Song dynasty patriots and traitors as well as legendary martial artists with names like The Eastern Heretic Apothecary Huang and Double Sun Wang Chongyang—oh, yes, and the Seven Freaks of the South (one is blind, one 3 feet tall, one deft at chopping up enemies with a butcher’s knife), who would prefer to be known as the Seven Heroes. Jin Yong draws on a body of legend, history, Taoist precepts, and various martial arts traditions to serve up a tale of stylized contests (“Nan threw a bone-piercing awl and Gilden Quan shot a concealed arrow from his sleeve”) and good/evil binaries that ends on a satisfyingly cliffhanging note. Though Jin Yong’s epics have been likened to Tolkien’s and George R.R. Martin’s, think Darth Vader’s message to Luke Skywalker, “I am your father,” as filtered through Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat.

Fans of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and historical fiction alike will enjoy this hard-hitting yarn.