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...
Photo: United News/Popperfoto via Getty Images (1980)
Sample of authors
Barnard, Robert
Robert Barnard was an English crime writer and scholar of international fame. He was born in Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. In 1956, he went up to Oxford to read literature, possibly encouraged by his father who wrote unremarkable romances and young adult books. After graduating in 1959, Barnard taught at university in Australia 1961–1966. He married Louise Tabor there in 1963. They were making p...