Gu Long - Biography

Biography

Xiong claimed ancestry from Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. He used to live at Hankou in his childhood. He was born on 7 June 1938 in Hong Kong. (his registered identity claimed that he was born in 1941) He moved to Taipei, Taiwan in 1952 with his parents, who divorced in 1956. With help from friends and money earned from part-time work, Xiong graduated from the Foreign Language Department of Tamkang University. He found a job in the United States Army Advisory in Taipei later.

In 1960 Xiong published his first wuxia novel Cangqiong Shenjian (蒼穹神劍) under the pen name "Gu Long". From 1960 to 1961 Xiong published eight novels but did not achieve the results he desired. He moved to Ruifang Town (瑞芳鎮) and lived there for three years, after which he changed his perspective and adopted a new writing style. Between 1967 and the late 1970s, Xiong rose to prominence in the annals of modern wuxia fiction for his works. As the sole representative of excellence in the wuxia genre from Taiwan for an entire decade, Xiong was named along with Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng as the "Three Legs of the Tripod of Wuxia".

In his university days Xiong lived together with a dance hostess named Zheng Yuexia (鄭月霞) and they had a son called Zheng Xiaolong (鄭小龍). Xiong started a relationship with another dance hostess called Ye Xue (葉雪), who also bore him a son, Ye Yikuan (葉怡寬). Shortly after that, Xiong met a senior middle school graduate named Mei Baozhu (梅寶珠), who became his first legal spouse and bore him his third son Xiong Zhengda (熊正達). Xiong's extramarital affairs with other women caused him to break up with Mei later.

In the later part of his life, Xiong suffered from depression and the quality of his works declined rapidly. He had to employ ghostwriters to co-write many of his later works because of his ailing health. He died on 21 September 1985 at the age of 48, due to illness wrought by alcoholism, namely cirrhosis and esophageal hemorrhage at around six in the evening. At Xiong's funeral his friends brought him 48 bottles of XO.