(Studies in Chinese Comparative Literature and Culture)
by Yan WEI (Author)
This
book views the Dutch sinologist, Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries
as a hybrid East–West form of detective fiction and uses the concept of
transculturation to discuss their hybrid nature with respect to their
sources, production, and influence.
The Judge Dee
mysteries authored by Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) were the first
detective stories to be set in ancient China. These hybrid narratives
combine Chinese historical figures, traditional Chinese crime
literature, and Chinese history and material culture with ratiocinative
methods and psychoanalytic themes familiar from Western detective
fiction. This new subject and detective image won a global readership,
and the book discusses the innovations that van Gulik’s Judge Dee
mysteries brought to both Chinese gong’an
literature and Western detective fiction. Furthermore, it introduces
contemporary writers from different countries who specialize in writing
detective fiction or gong’an novels set in ancient China.
The
book will meet the interest of fans of Judge Dee stories throughout the
world and will also appeal to both students and researchers of
comparative literature, Chinese literature, and crime novels studies.
