R.I.P. 梁羽生 Liang Yusheng 5th April 1926 – 22nd January 2009

Liang Yusheng, a pioneer in Chinese martial arts novels, has died, news reports said. He was 85. Liang died at his home in Sydney, Australia on Jan. 22, the Australian edition of the Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao Daily reported Monday. Luo Fu, the former editor of the now-defunct Sin Wan Bao newspaper, which hired Liang to write his first kung fu series, was quoted by Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News on Tuesday as saying that Liang had died. Liang, whose real name was Chen Wuntong, has been in poor health in recent years, diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2004 and suffering a stroke when he visited Hong Kong in 2007, Ming Pao said. The Veteran Scribe who bought to us "Romance of the White Haired Maiden (白髮魔女傳)", "Seven Swords of Mount Heaven (七劍下天山)" (both being adapted into considerably respectable film adaptations, respectively) etc, who is though relatively lesser-known as compared to Jin Yong in their respective iconic role in Chinese literacy, but nonetheless helped shaped the Wuxia Genre into its highly regarded status as a literature form has left the Building.