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
Gunnar Barbarotti
Gender: Male
His father was Italian, his mother Swedish – and one of the few things they were successful with was their son’s name. Gunnar Barbarotti is a police detective in the fictive Swedish town of Kymlinge. He is a reflecting gentleman with an everyday appearance who is unlucky in his relationships: his first wife leaves him, his second wife dies in the books by Håkan Nesser. When alone, Barbarotti has l...