Robert van Gulik

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Van Gulik (1945)

Robert Hans van Gulik (born August 9, 1910 in Zutphen , † September 24, 1967 in The Hague ) was a Dutch sinologist, full-time diplomat and part-time writer, musician and draftsman. He wrote a series of detective novels to the Chinese Judge Dee .

Life

Robert Hans van Gulik was the son of a family of doctors. From 1915 to 1922 he grew up in Indonesia , where his father worked as a medical officer in the Dutch colonial army. The primary school was only taught in Dutch , but the foreign language environment enabled him to learn Chinese , Javanese and Malay during this time . The fascination that the strange characters on the signs of Chinese shops had on him prompted him to learn the Chinese script and language at an early age.

After his family returned to Holland, he attended high school where he learned Greek , Latin , French , German and English . In his spare time he also received lessons in Russian and Sanskrit from the linguist Christianus Cornelis Uhlenbeck, who recognized the young van Gulik's talent for languages. In addition, he used his pocket money to buy a private Chinese tutor for his beloved Chinese.

From 1929 to 1934 he studied Indian law and various Asian languages at the Universities of Leiden and Utrecht . In 1935 he received his doctorate in literary studies . He then worked as a diplomat in Japan , Egypt , India , China , the USA and Malaysia, among others . From 1965 until his untimely death he was the Dutch ambassador to Japan.

Marriage to Shui Shifang (Chongqing, 1943)

In China, in 1943, at the age of 33, he married 22-year-old Shui Shihfang, who worked in the Ministry of Social Affairs in the provisional Chinese capital Chongqing and had initially given van Gulik language lessons. The couple had three sons and a daughter.

Van Gulik dealt scientifically and essayistically with Chinese history and culture and was very successful as a writer. As a competent draftsman, he illustrated his books himself in the Chinese Ming style. He also mastered playing the Chinese guqin fretboard zither and wrote musicological essays on it .

On September 24, 1967, Robert van Gulik died of lung cancer at the age of 57 in The Hague .

Works

Van Gulik published scientific papers from 1934. His writing began in 1949 with a translation of the 18th century Chinese crime novel Dee Goong An ( Chinese : 狄公奇 案, Pinyin : dí gōng qí àn; German strange criminal cases of Judge Di ). The title character, Judge Di ( Chinese : 狄仁傑 Pinyin: Dí Rénjié), lived in the Tang period from 630 to 700 AD. This translation was such a success that van Gulik began writing his own novels about Judge Di. In 14 novels , 2 longer and 8 shorter stories, the career of Dis is traced from the district judge on the northeast border of the empire to the supreme judge in the capital.

Although the contents of the novels are fiction , they give detailed insights into social, economic and cultural realities due to the precise knowledge of Chinese culture and history that the author incorporates. The drawings made by the author himself, however, correspond to the style of the Ming period .

Honors

In Zutphen a street was named Robert van Guliklaan .

bibliography

Translation of the classic Richter-Di novel

  • Strange criminal cases by Judge Di. An old Chinese detective novel (1949); Edited and translated from Chinese by Robert van Gulik. Translated from the English by Gretel and Kurt Kuhn. In the original Chinese four extraordinarily strange cases in the reign of Empress Wu , Chinese: 武則天 四大 奇案, Pinyin: Wǔ Zétiān sì dà qí àn; English Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee . Zurich: The Scales, 1960; Paperback edition Frankfurt: Fischer-TB-Verlag, 1980; Paperback edition Zurich: Diogenes, 1998 (detebe 23014). ISBN 978-3257230147

The Richter-Di series

All manuscripts were written in English. The order is based on the bibliography in the biography of CD Barkman et al. And is arranged according to the year of first publication.

  • Mord im Labyrinth ( The Chinese Maze Murders , written in 1950, editions Japanese 1950, Chinese 1953, English 1956, German 1966)
  • Miracles in pu-yang? (English The Chinese Bell Murders , written 1948–1951, published in sequels Japanese 1955, as a book English and Dutch 1958, German 1964)
  • Der See von Han-yuan (English The Chinese Lake Murders , written 1952–1957, editions 1959 Dutch 1959, English 1960, German 1990)
  • Geisterspuk in Peng-lai (English The Chinese Gold Murders , written in 1956, Dutch editions 1958, English 1959, German 1986)
  • Nail test in Pei-tscho (English The Chinese Nail Murders , written in 1958, issues Dutch 1960, English 1961, German 1990)
  • The screen made of red lacquer (English The Lacquer Screen , written in 1958, editions English, Dutch 1960, German 1990)
  • Death in the Red Pavilion (English The Red Pavilion , written in 1959, editions English, Dutch 1961, German 1965)
  • Nocturnal spook in the monastery (English The Haunted Monastery , written 1958–1959, editions English 1961, Dutch 1962, German 1990)
  • Die Perle des Kaiser ( The Emperor's Pearl , written in 1960, editions English, Dutch 1963, German 1989)
  • Mord in Kanton (English Murder in Canton , written 1961–1962, edition Dutch 1964, English 1966, German 1988)
  • Mord nach Muster ( The Willow Pattern , written in 1963, Dutch in continuations 1964, book edition in English 1965, German 1989)
  • Das Phantom im Tempel ( The Phantom of the Temple , written in 1965 from a comic, edition 1966, Dutch 1968, German 1989)
  • Necklace and calabash (Engl. Necklace and Calabash , written in 1966, spending Engl., Dutch. 1967, dt. 1987)
  • Poets and Murderers (English Poets and Murder , written in 1967, posthumous editions English, Dutch 1968, German 1988)

Richter-Di narratives

  • The Monkey and the Tiger (English: The Monkey and the Tiger , Dutch issues 1964, English 1965, German 1988)
  • Judge Di at Work (English Judge Dee at Work , Edition English 1967, German 1990)

Other crime novels

  • The given day ( Dutch Een Gegeven dag , The Hague 1963; English The given day , translated by Robert van Gulik, Kuala Lumpur 1964; German 1991)

Scientific works (selection)

  • A Blackfoot-English vocabulary based on material from the Southern Peigans (with Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck). Amsterdam, Uitgave van de NV Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1934. 12.
  • The Lore of the Chinese Lute. An Essay in Ch'in Ideology . Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 1 No. 2, 1938, pp. 386-428, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1939, pp. 75-99, Vol. 2 No. 2, 1939, pp. 409-436, vol. 3 no. 1, 1940, pp. 127-176
  • The Lore of the Chinese Lute. Addenda and Corrigenda . Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 7 No. 1/2, 1951, pp. 300-310
  • Hsi K'ang and his Poetical Essay on the Lute (1941)
  • Siddham; An Essay on the History of Sanskrit Studies in China and Japan (1956)
  • A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca.1500 BC till 1644 AD Leiden 1961 (An examination of the social role of sexuality, such as the institution of cohabitation and prostitution).
  • The gibbon in China. An essay in Chinese animal lore (1967)
  • Erotic Color Prints of the Ming Period. With an Essay on Chinese Sex Life from the Han to the Ch'ing Dynasty, BC 206 - AD 1644 . Private printing in an edition of 50 pieces. Tokyo 1951

literature

  • CD Barkman, H. de Vries-Van der Hoeven: Een Man van drie levens. Biography of Diplomaat / Schrijver / Geleerde Robert van Gulik. Biography (Dutch), 319 pp., Amsterdam 1993, Bibliography pp. 309-312
  • Janwillem van de Wetering : Robert van Gulik: His Life, His Work. Miami Beach, FL, 1987, ISBN 0-960-99868-3 (lovers edition ). New York, NY, 1998, ISBN 1-56947-124-X . German: Robert van Gulik. A life with Richter Di , Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-257-01864-9 . As a paperback Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-257-22496-6 , bibliography pp. 173–180
  • Fredric Lieberman: Robert Hans Van Gulik. A Bibliography . In: Asian Music , Vol. 1 No. 1, 1968, pp. 23-30

Web links

  • Robert van Gulik on: NiederlandeNet - Cross-Border Online Journalism, Westfälische Wilhelms Universität. (Retrieved April 18, 2020.)
personal data
SURNAME Gulik, Robert van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gulik, Robert Hans van (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch diplomat, author and sinologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Zutphen
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1967
Place of death The hague