The chuanqi of Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), short stories about legendary swordsmen, is the earliest form of wuxia novel. Almost every dynasty after that developed its unique literary form to tell such stories.

The renaissance of the wuxia novel in the 20th century produced a sensation the tradition never experienced in its history. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Chinese society witnessed the emergence of about 120 writers and the publication of more than 680 kinds of works.

In 1952 the leaders of two important martial arts sects held a contest in Macao to fight for the No 1 place in martial arts. The event greatly fuelled public enthusiasm for kung fu heroes. Based on the event, Leung Yu-sang of Hong Kong wrote a novel called Dragon and Tiger Fighting in the Capital City (Longhu dou jinghua), which proved to be an enormous market success and heralded a booming time for such novels that would last for about 30 years.

According to Xiao Yi, a wuxia novelist active during that period, there were perhaps about 400 writers engaged in this business in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The novels of top-rank authors such as Louis Cha, Leung Yu-sang, and Ku Lung were serialized simultaneously in dozens of Chinese newspapers and magazines around the world. Most of the classics read and talked about today were written in this period.

The writing also inspired many action films and kung fu movies, which in turn developed the audience's interest in the novels.

While Cha, Leung and Ku stopped writing a long time ago -- Cha announced his retirement in 1972, Leung in 1984, Ku died in 1985 -- the Chinese mainland saw interest in wuxia grow from the late 1980s until the present day. Two of Cha's 16 works, The Smiling Proud Wonder  (Xiao'ao Jianghu), and The Legend of the Condor Heroes (Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan), have been adapted by CCTV in the past two years into TV series with huge budgets.

Even academic circles have changed their attitude and started to regard wuxia novels as literature eligible for serious scholarship. In 1999, Cha received the offer to serve as the director of the Humanities College of Zhejiang University.

(China Daily December 18, 2003)