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This is part of our crime fiction in translation blog series, showcasing some of the best crime fiction (historical and modern) the non-English speaking world has to offer. Each post will focus on a text or series from a different culture, so stay tuned to expand your reading horizons. Contact [email protected] with recommendations for where/when the series should go next, or send us your own blog post about your country’s/country of research’s crime fiction.  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.
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