Robert van Gulik with wife Shui Shih-fang 1946
Sample of authors
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...
Literary figures
William Dougal
Gender: Male
He is working on a doctoral thesis in History, but supports himself with various jobs in Andrew Taylor’s books about him: private detective, freelance editor, working in a security company etc. He is basically amoral, and spends just as much time committing crimes as he does solving them. William Dougal does, however, try to live honourably so that he can marry his girlfriend Celia Prentisse, w...