One of the most celebrated and beloved literary epics in China, Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes has been the country’s premier wuxia—a blending of history, martial arts action, and fantasy—for more than half a century. Now, St. Martin’s Press is proud to publish the first English-language translation of the classic saga for U.S. readers, starting with A Hero Born.
Created by Louis Cha Leung-yung—Jin Yong’s true name—the Legends stories were serialized in Hong Kong newspapers during the 1950s alongside Cha’s editorials; statements which were openly critical of Mao Zedong’s communist regime. Set in eleventh century, Song Dynasty China, the narrative of warriors defending their land and people from invading armies and oppressive governments reflected contemporary politics, igniting the country’s nostalgia for China’s glorious ancestry.
Adapted to television, film, comic books, and video games, Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes is a Chinese pop culture genre phenomenon equivalent to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings that is finally receiving its long overdue proper introduction to American readers.
The first novel, A Hero Born, arrives in the U.S. on September 17, 2019, from St. Martin’s Press.
A fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, A Hero Born is the classic novel of its time, stretching from the Song Empire (China 1200 AD) to the appearance of a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.
And then a hero is born…
After his father, a Song patriot, was murdered, Guo Jing and his mother fled to the plains and joined Genghis Khan and his people. Loyal, humble and driven, he learned all he could from the warlord and his army in hopes of one day joining them in their cause. But what Guo Jing doesn’t know is that he’s destined to battle an opponent that will challenge him in every way imaginable and with a connection to his past that no one envisioned.
With the help and guidance of his shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing returns to China to face his foe and carry out his destiny. But in a land divided by treachery and war, betrayal and ambition, he’ll have to put his courage and knowledge to the test to survive.
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A Hero Born
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano. Jacket photographs: man © Mike’s Spirits/Shutterstock.com; body © ArtOfPhotos/Shutterstock.com; hair © iStock/visualspace; hands © faestock/shutterstock.com; sword © Chanawat Phadwichit/Shutterstock.com; ink © iStock/stellalevi; splatter © iStock/RomanOkopny; background © iStock/rusm
One of the most important works of fiction to come out of Asia. I hope that this long overdue translation does well enough to warrant not only an import of Jin Yong’s other works, but also the works of his contemporaries.
My curiosity is piqued! Why aren’t all the good world literature NOT translated for publication sooner?!
It’s weird, because the books (at least the first two) are already available in english translation, from some a small UK outfit called MacLehose Press (they’re on pretty much every amazon site).
Excellent! I’ve been wanting to lay hands on some wuxia novels for years; as with everybody else, I hope this does well enough to warrant other translations. (Bride with White Hair? Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain? Did they start life as books?)
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The Bride with White Hair did start life as a book by Liang Yusheng. I don’t think there is a legal English translation of the book.
I’ve been waiting for legal English (non-comicbook) translations of Legend of the Condor Heroes and Return of the Condor Heroes since I read some of the comic books in the ’90s. I was very happy to discover A Hero Born translated last year, but I’m just as happy to hear it will be easily available in US stores. I have several other books by Louis Cha (Jin Yong) but they haven’t caught my imagination the way these series did.
Sir Louis Cha Leung Yung created heroes through his novels to be attractive a thousand of Asian readers. Thank you so much! The Characters Guo Jing, Yeung Guo, Yong Er, Xiao Long Nu … always live in my mind. I hope the translation of this novel can help American readers know kind spirit of human by the condor hero Guo Ying who hunted two bad condors at Mongolia. Chinese is rather wonderful language, every word is miracle meaning. The translation of Latin language cannot enough to transfer the meaning of Chinese word and that can make the feeling decreased when we read Jing Yung’s novels. Ex: Seven Heroes of Southern is the stylized name of kind seven brothers living Southern China who always help weak person. Although their enemies have one hundred persons or only one, they always fight with together.
The (I guess) British version of this book came out last year. You can find it on Amazon. In January 2019, the second volume of the series “A Bond Undone” was released. I’ve already finished reading it. It’s so much fun to read and really easy to understand, while also being really detailed.
I’ve always equated Jin Yong to Tolkien in my head just because of the effect they had on their respective genres.
I wonder though which edition they based the translation on because Jin Yong did a fairly major re-edit of his books in the early 2000’s, from answering continuity questions to changing character arcs and/or motivations, and it wasn’t necessarily always for the better or done as smoothly and subtly as possible.
I hope this series does well and encourages a new translation of The Duke of Deer Mountain, which I enjoy more and would argue is even more iconic (though I believe Legend of Condor Heroes has more video adaptations).
The cover we see here will help sales, I’m sure, as it makes the book look like an exciting fantasy epic rather than a rather stuffy, academic offering like translations often are (since they most often come from university presses I guess)