Robert van GulikRobert Hans van Gulik (August 9, 1910 - September 24, 1967) was a highly educated orientalist, diplomat, musician (of the guqin) and writer, best known for the Judge Dee mysteries. Van Gulik grew up in Indonesia where he was tutored in Mandarin. He joined the Dutch Foreign Service in 1935 and was stationed in various countries: Japan, China, India and Lebanon during the 1958 Civil War there. From 1965 until his death of cancer in 1967 he was ambassador to Japan.
He is best known for his Judge Dee stories, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th century Chinese detective novel Dee Goong An, which itself was loosely based on the adventures of a historical figure, the Confucian magistrate Judge Ti, Di or Dee.
高羅佩Robert van Gulik: “As Chinese rendering of my name I chose KAO LO-P'EI, KAO representing the GU in van Gulik, and LO-P'EI being a phonetic rendering of my personal name Robert. To this name I have stuck throughout the years, and it is by this name that I am known in the Far East.” Van Gulik always used the traditional Chinese characters shown above (presuming your browser can handle Chinese characters at all). The modern version ("Simplified Chinese") is 高罗佩, where the second character has been replaced by a simplified version. The modern transcription is Gao Luo-pei. |
Biographies
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