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Portrait image of Robert van Gulik Robert van Gulik with wife Shui Shih-fang 1946

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Gulik, Robert van

Robert Hans van Gulik was born in Zutphen, the Netherlands, and grew up in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the former Dutch East Indies, where his father served as a medical officer in the Dutch Army. Van Gulik’s father collected Chinese porcelain and passed his interest on to his son who taught himself Mandarin. Robert van Gulik was fascinated by Chinese history and culture, and he became an authority o...

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Literary figures

Kenneth Carlisle

Gender: Male

A popular and charming silent-movie star who starts a new career when the talkies make their breakthrough – even though, in contrast to many colleagues, he has a good voice. But Kenneth Carlisle is fed up with show business, of the idolatry and of not having any private life, explains author Carolyn Wells. Instead, he establishes himself as a private detective in Manhattan, and solves cases in v...

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