Article

Name: CHINESE STORIES TOLD IN THE EUROPEAN MANNER: ROBERT VAN GULICK’S DETECTIVE NOVELS ABOUT JUDGE DEE

Authors: M. R. Nenarokova

A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, the Academy of Sciences of Russia, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section The Plot, Motive, Genre

Abstract: The article focuses on Robert van Gulick’s detective novels, which serve as an example of revising the Chinese «judicial» novel in accordance with the requirements of the European detective fiction. The features that distinguish the traditional Chinese «judicial» novels from the European detective stories, are listed in the «Translator’s Preface» to the novel «The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee,» translated by R.van Gulick (1949). Details of the writer’s work on the series of novels about judge Dee are found in the «Postscripts» to the books in question. R. van Gulick used ancient Chinese legal treatises, historical works, own research as sources for the plots, but changed and reworked traditional Chinese themes taking into account the perception of a Western reader.

Keywords: detective genre, plot, china, the west, tradition, robert van gulick, stylization

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