The Use of Chinese Supernatural Elements in Van Gulik’s Series Judge Dee Mysteries

In the middle of the last century the erudite Dutch sinologist Robert Hans van Gulik, strongly fascinated by Chinese traditional crime literature (gongan xiaoshuo), wrote a series of detective novels (1959-1967) inspired by Chinese gongan xiaoshuo characters, plots and structures. He wrote in english and his audience was meant to be europen or american, but he faced a problem: in his opinion, the supernatural found in Chinese gongan xiaoshuo could be ridicoulus for Western audience. Besides he decided to take inspiration from the Chinese supernatural world but modifyied the impact on the reader. This essay will investigate how van Gulik could include Chinese supernatural elements without betraying the classical structure of Western detective stories, that was supposedly based on realism.