In 1940, Dutch diplomat and sinologist Robert van Gulik came across a curious text. It was a copy of Wu Tse-t'ien ssu-ta ch'i-an, an anonymously written 18th century Chinese crime novel narrating the cases of a certain Dí Rénjié (also known as Ti Jen-chieh), a magistrate-cum-politician-cum-detective. Van Gulik fell in love with the character, releasing his own 1949 English translation of the novel, titling it Dee Goong An (Dí Gōng Àn): Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. He then placed Judge Dee at the centre of his own crime series, beginning with The Chinese Bell Murders (1958) and continuing with over 15 subsequent and highly popular novels. Judge Dee soon accrued one of the largest international reputations of any historical Chinese hero (McMullen 1), promoting interest in the gong’an (kung-an) tradition of Chinese crime fiction, a subgenre revolving around the criminal investigations of government magistrates (comparable to Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason legal thrillers, also popular with Western audiences at the time). The stories were a notable force in the popularisation of historical crime fiction, painting a vivid portrait of their Tang Dynasty setting.

         The protagonist of van Gulik’s series was not, of course, a wholly authentic or original creation. The 20th century English-speaking Judge Dee is the translated image of an 18th century Chinese character seen through Orientalist eyes. Van Gulik translated not just the language of Wu Tse-t'ien ssu-ta ch'i-an but arguably its genre, consciously adapting its structure, plotting, and devices to better suit the tastes of his Western audience, adding material from across the entirety of Chinese literature (Lach 10-11). He accentuated facets of Chinese culture he thought Western readers would find curious or exotic – such as Beggar’s Guilds, Taoist practices, slavery, and the prevalence of prostitution – emphasising the society’s foreignness. He did not even translate Wu Tse-t'ien ssu-ta ch'i-an in its entirety, ignoring half (more than thirty chapters) of his source material (Idema; Ma 248). The 18th century novel is itself plagued with anachronisms, depicting the standards and practices of a contemporary society rather than the 7th century setting of the original tradition of Dí Rénjié myths and stories, which are in turn inspired by the factual cases of a real-life figure of the same name.

To read the Judge Dee stories today, then, is to peer at a semi-fictional, practically mythological figure through a millennia-long series of warping lenses: an image obscured by time, adaptation, translation, and orientalism. Van Gulik’s stories can still be fun to read – they certainly present a much more sympathetic depiction of Chinese culture and people than other 20th century Western crime fiction (for example the notoriously problematic Fu Manchu). Nonetheless, and without condemning the narratives completely, it is easy to wonder just how much has been lost in the gaps between cultures, eras, and genres, and what more writers and scholars can be doing to rectify the matter. The power imbalances endemic to translation particularly come to mind. Van Gulik translated only one of his Judge Dee novels into Chinese himself, effectively detaching the character from his native audience.
 
Works Cited
Davis, J. Madison. “Interpreting the East to the West.” World Literature Today, vol. 
80, no. 6, 2006, pp. 13- 15.
Idema, W.L.. “The Mystery of the Halved Judge Dee Novel: The Anonymous Wu 
Tse-t'ien ssu-ta ch'i-an and Its Partial Translation.” Tamkang Review, vol. 8, no.  1, 1977, pp. 155-169.
Lach, Donald F. ‘Introduction.’ The Chinese Bell Murders, by Robert van Gulik, 
1958. University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 1-13.
Ma, Y.W. “Kung-an Fiction: A Historical and Critical Introduction.” T'oung Pao, 
vol. 65, no. 4/5, 1979, pp. 200-259.
McMullen, David. “The Real Judge Dee: Ti Jen-chieh and the T’ang Restoration of 
705.” Asisa Major, vol. 6, no. 1, 1993, pp. 1-81.
Van Gulik, Robert. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An). 1949. Dover, 1976.
---. The Chinese Bell Murders. 1958. University of Chicago Press, 1977. ​

Author Bio: Benjamin Parris is a doctoral candidate at the University of St Andrews, whose research interests lie in the fiction and socio-politics of interwar Britain. His work uses close reading to rearticulate modern perceptions of the period’s literary heterogeneity, currently focusing upon forgotten crime writers such as John Dickson Carr and Lynn Brock. Benjamin’s recent publications include reviews of crime fiction scholarship, author interviews, and a chapter in the forthcoming edited volume Anglophone Golden Age Detective Fiction and the World Wars. Whilst running book clubs and tutoring for adult education NGOs, Benjamin has also recently joined the ICFA’s ECR/PGR Team.

Funded by BAFTSS, the PGR symposium of Crime Narratives on Screen invites papers that explore how crime narratives engage with social, political, and cultural issues within rapidly transforming screen industries.

In recent years, crime narratives have expanded across media platforms, including films, television series, documentaries, short-form content, and video games. This proliferation has positioned crime as a central storytelling mode within contemporary visual culture. Its global reach invites critical reflection on the ways crime, justice, and morality are framed through screen cultures.
Crime narratives encompass any texts that centre on social transgression, investigation, or the negotiation of deviance and order. This includes genres not conventionally labelled as ‘crime’ within their national or cultural contexts. Submissions from all disciplines and methodological approaches are welcome.
​
Submission Guidelines
Individual paper proposals should include:

• a 250-word abstract for a 20-minute presentation, including the paper title, the presenter’s name, email address, and institutional affiliation (if applicable)
• a 100-word biographical note

Pre-constituted panel proposals (three papers) should include:

• the above materials for each participant
• a 250-word panel abstract outlining the panel’s overall theme and rationale
  
  
  All proposals should be sent to CNS.Durham2026@gmail.com.

Contact Information
For inquiries, email CNS.Durham2026@gmail.com.

Our fifth contributor to the Q & Blog series is Dr Dorothea Flothow!

Dr Dorothea Flothow is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria. She is also a Series Editor for the forthcoming edited collection, Global Historical Fictions.
​

Book Information: ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215746.html.

An excerpt of the introduction: crimereads.com/patricia-highsmith-shirley-jackson-leigh-brackett-on-edge-lawson/

​An excerpt of Lawson's chapter on Shirley Jackson’s as a writer of crime fiction: shirleyjacksonstudies.org/?p=95

​

Author Bio:
Ashley Lawson is a Professor of English at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, West Virginia. Her research and teaching center on early-to-mid twentieth-century American literature, with a special focus on women writers. Lawson’s book, On Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett (The Ohio State University Press) was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Awards in 2025. Her work has also appeared in Shirley Jackson Studies, The Journal for Modern Periodical Studies and The Fitzgerald Review, as well as in scholarly book collections.​

Crime Fiction Studies invites contributions for a themed issue on crime fiction and videogames. Crime and the many facts of its detection are major themes in many videogames, from cozy point-and-click games (such as the long-running Nancy Drew series) to multiple-path morality games (such as Wolf Among Us). Other games not necessarily classed as ‘mystery’ games nevertheless benefit from crime as inciting incidents or moral dilemmas, putting the player in the position of detective, perpetrator, or bystander. By examining the ideological ripples of crime fiction on this interactive storytelling medium, players are asked to engage and often embody themes of justice, morality and crime through avatars and gameplay, offering fruitful avenues for considering the evolution of genre into interactive and often non-linear narrative spaces. How does the element of play impact the themes and expectations of the crime genre? How do different game genres interact with, and produce commentary on, different crime-oriented literary genres?

This special issue will examine the intersections of the literary (narrative, text, dialogue, character) and the ludic (elements of play and game design), with an emphasis on reading videogames as crime fiction. While we invite abstracts from literary scholars and games scholars, we wish to emphasize the importance of the literary to this special issue.
Potential areas of research into games are:
●      The ‘cozy’ mystery game.
●      The visual novel.
●      The multiple-path mystery game.
●      Action games with mystery or crime elements.
●      Historical vs. contemporary settings in crime games.
●      Crime in fantasy or scifi contexts.
●      Player avatars as detective or criminal.
●      The role of mysteries and crimes within unexpected genres.
●      Representations of the detective or the citizen sleuth.
●      Game examinations of policing and detection.
●      Crime fiction pastiches in games.
●      Adaptations of crime fiction or famous characters into game format.
●      Evolution of different mystery genres from the literary to the ludic.

Abstracts for the issue are due 15 December 2025; with full drafts (7,000–7,500 words) due 15 March 2026. Please submit your abstract to crimefictionstudies@gmail.com.

​Abstracts should be roughly 200-300 words. Please include an author biography with your submission, in the same document. For further details, please read over https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/cfs.