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
Norah Mulcahaney
Gender: Female
Young, attractive police officer in New York, who already in Lillian O’Donnell’s second book about her marries her older colleague Joe Capretto. After she has had several miscarriages, they adopt a child, but soon afterwards Norah Mulcahaney becomes a widow. She struggles on, however, and is promoted even though she breaks internal rules and in one instance even has her service weapon taken away.