A native of Haining county, Zhejiang province, China, with ancestry from Wuyuan, a county of Shangrao prefecture in Jiangxi province, Cha is the second of seven children from an illustrious family of scholars; his grandfather was a Jinshi. Cha was an avid reader of literature from an early age, especially Wuxia and classical fiction. He was once expelled from his high school for openly criticizing the Nationalist regime as autocratic. He studied at Hangzhou High School (?????????) in 1937 but was dismissed in 1941. He studied in Zhejiang Province Jiaxing High School and was admitted to the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Central University in Chongqing. ª÷±e«È´Ì¡Ðª÷±e¤p¶Ç Cha later transferred to the Faculty of Law at Dongwu University to major in international law, with the intention of working as a foreign relations official.

In 1947, Cha joined Shanghai's newspaper agency Ta Kung Pao as a journalist. One year later, he was posted to the Hong Kong division as a copyeditor. He has resided in Hong Kong ever since. When Cha was transferred to Hsin Wan Pao as Deputy Editor, he met Chen Wentong, who in 1953 wrote his first Wuxia novel under the pseudonym "Liang Yusheng" (???). Chen and Cha became good friends and it was under the former's influence that Cha began work on his first serialized martial arts novel, The Book and the Sword, in 1955. In 1957, while still working on Wuxia serializations, he quit his previous job and worked as a scenarist-director and scriptwriter at the Great Wall Movie Enterprises Ltd and Phoenix Film Company.

In 1959, together with fellow high-school mate Shen Baoxin (???), Cha founded the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao. Cha served as its editor-in-chief for years, writing both serialized novels and editorials, amounting to some 10,000 characters per day. His editorials were well respected, and Ming Pao gradually gained a reputation as one of Hong Kong's most highly rated press. His novels also earned him a large readership. Cha completed his last Wuxia novel in 1972, after which he officially retired from writing, and spent the remaining years of that decade editing and revising his literary works instead. The first complete definitive edition of his works appeared in 1979. In 1980, Cha wrote a postscript to Wu Gongzao's tai chi classic Wu Jia Taijiquan, in which he described influences from as far back as Laozi and Zhuangzi on contemporary Chinese martial arts.

By then, Cha's Wuxia novels have earned great popularity in Chinese-speaking areas. All of his novels have since been adapted into films, TV series and radio series in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. The important characters in his novels are so well-known to the public that they can be alluded to with ease between all three regions.

In later years in the 1970s, Cha was involved in Hong Kong politics. He was a member of the Hong Kong Basic Law drafting committee, although, after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he resigned in protest. He was also part of the Preparatory Committee set up in 1996 to supervise Hong Kong's transition by the Chinese government.

In 1993, Cha prepared for retirement from editorial work, selling all his shares in Ming Pao. Together with the royalties from his works, Cha's personal wealth is estimated at some HK$600 million.

Cha married three times in his life. He divorced twice, and had two sons and two daughters, all from his second marriage. In 1976, Cha's eldest son committed suicide while a student at Columbia University.

In addition to his novels, Cha has also written many non-fiction works on the history of China. For his achievements, he has received many honors.

Cha was awarded the OBE in 1981. He is a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (1992) and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2004), both awarded by the French government.

Cha is also an honorary professor at Peking University, Zhejiang University, Nankai University, Soochow University, Huaqiao University, National Tsing Hua University, Hong Kong University (Department of Chinese Studies), the University of British Columbia, and Sichuan University, as well as an honorary doctor by Hong Kong University (Department of Social Science), Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Open University of Hong Kong, the University of British Columbia, Soka University and the University of Cambridge. He is also an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and Robinson College, Cambridge, and Wynflete Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

When receiving his honorary doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 2004, Cha expressed his wish to be a full-time student at Cambridge for four years to attain a non-honorary doctorate. In July 2010, Cha earned his PhD in Oriental Studies (Chinese History) at St. John's College, Cambridge with a thesis on Imperial succession during the early Tang period.

1 The time frame of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer is unspecified; Cha states that it is intentionally left ambiguous because the novel is allegorical in nature. Nevertheless, people have speculated on the timeframe; the most possible candidate is the Ming Dynasty, because the Wudang and Emei sects (founded at the start of the Ming Dynasty) appear prominently, and because the Manchus (who destroyed the Ming Dynasty) are not mentioned. In The Deer and the Cauldron, the main character is also mentioned to be from a dynasty before Qing. In several film adaptations including 'Swordsman II' starring Jet Li, the story is specified to take place during the reign of the Wanli Emperor, which would make it the late Ming Dynasty but just before the period of Manchu encroachment.

2 The time frame of Ode to Gallantry is also unspecified. The sources that would put the story in Ming Dynasty are that the mention of Zhang Sanfeng being already dead and the illustrations depict men wearing Han hairstyle. Also, there is a mention of the massacre of the Nie Family Fist in the year Gengshen being a few years before the La Ba feast, which takes place just before a year that has an intercalary second lunar month. Hence, it is calculated that the events in the novel are likely to take place around 1563.

3 The time frame of A Deadly Secret was ambiguous in its first and second editions. Cha specifically states that the story is inspired by the tragic story of his grandfather's servant seems to suggest that the events of the novel occurs near the end of the Qing Dynasty; the novel illustrations that depict men wearing Manchu hairstyle supports this idea. In the third edition of the novel, Cha links the story with Wu Liuqi, a character from The Deer and the Cauldron, fully integrating it into Qing Dynasty.

The books currently available are:

• The Book and the Sword - published by Oxford University Press, translated by Graham Earnshaw, edited by John Minford and Rachel May
• The Deer and the Cauldron (in three volumes) - published by Oxford University Press, translated by John Minford
• Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain - published by China University Press, translated by Olivia Mok

Other works available in English include:

• The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber - in comic book form by Ma Wing-shing, published by ComicsOne
• The Legendary Couple - in comic book form by Tony Wong, published by ComicsOne
• The Return of the Condor Heroes - in comic book form by Wee Tian Beng, published by Asiapac Books
• Laughing in the Wind - DVD collection of the 2001 CCTV series with English subtitles released in the United States.

There are more than 60 TV series and films adapted from Cha's novels, including The Swordsman from King Hu et al., and its sequel Swordsman II from directors Ching Siu-Tung and Stanley Tong; the Wong Jing films Royal Tramp and Royal Tramp II (both starring Stephen Chow); and Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time. Dozens of role-playing video games are based on Cha's novels, a notable example of which is Heroes of Jin Yong (?????), which was based on the major characters and events in Cha's novels.