Janwillem van de Wetering

Jan Willem Lincoln van de Wetering (February 12, 1931 – July 4, 2008) was the author of a number of works in English and Dutch.

Biography

Van de Wetering was born and raised in Rotterdam, as the son of a rich businessman who dealt in a wide variety of commodities. In later years he lived in South Africa, Japan, London, Colombia, Peru, Australia, Amsterdam and in Surry, Maine, the setting of two of his Grijpstra and de Gier novels and his children's series about the porcupine "Hugh Pine".

Van de Wetering studied Zen under the guidance of Oda Sessō, together with Walter Nowick, at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. Van de Wetering lived a year in Daitoku-ji and half a year with Nowick outside the temple, and described his experiences in his book The Empty Mirror. The book includes an account of a visit to the monastery by Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, describing his own mixed thoughts about this representative of what he deemed an old-fashioned religion. He wrote the first draft in 1958, and the second draft in the summer of 1960, but only wrote the book that was published in 10 days in 1970.

Hugh Pine and Something Else, 1983
Eugen Eule und der Fall des verschwundenen Flohs, 2001

Other fiction

The Butterfly Hunter, 1982
Bliss and Bluster, 1982
Inspector Saito's Small Satori, 1985 (collection)
Murder by Remote Control, 1986 (graphic novel, with Paul Kirchner)
Seesaw Millions, 1988
Mangrove Mama and Other Tropical Tales of Terror, 1995 (anthology)
Judge Dee Plays His Lute: A Play and Selected Mystery Stories, 1997 (anthology; includes the original play Judge Dee Plays his Lute and a selection of uncollected short stories)
Die entartete Seezunge, 2004 (inspired by the World War 2 bombing of Rotterdam and the 9/11 disaster in NYC) (a novel in German, appeared as an article in Dutch)

Non-fiction

The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, 1971
A Glimpse of Nothingness: Experiences in an American Zen Community, 1975
De doosjesvuller en andere vondsten (The boxfiller and other findings), 1984 (essays in Dutch)
Waar zijn we aan begonnen? (What have we started?), 1985 (essays in Dutch on the stages of life with the psychologist Hans van Rappard)
Robert Van Gulik: His Life, His Work, 1988
Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student out on His Ear, 1999

Articles/stories not included in books

"Astral Bodies and Tantric Sex." The New York Times, January 10, 1988. (review of a two-volume biography of Alexandra David-Néel)
"The Way Life Should Be - Maine: coastline on a clean, cold sea." The Nation, September 1, 2003.

Translations

Alexandra David-Néel and Lama Yongden: The Power of Nothingness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982 (French to English, with an introduction by the translator)
Van de Wetering translated many books from English to Dutch and two books from French to Dutch.

Filmography

Grijpstra & De Gier (Netherlands, 1979), based on the novel Outsider in Amsterdam, script by Wim Verstappen
Rattlerat (Netherlands, 1987), script by Wim Verstappen
Der blonde Affe (Germany, 1999), based on the novel The Blond Baboon

Television

A TV series based on the Grijpstra and de Gier characters started airing on Dutch TV in 2004, 30 episodes are made, another 15 are ordered. Roef Ragas and Jack Wouterse play youthful versions of de Gier and Grijpstra.
CBS aired a TV special featuring the original Hugh Pine novel (Storybreak #12).

Radio

Van de Wetering wrote 4 radio plays for German TV, again based on the Grijpstra and de Gier series. The plays were aired during the early nineties. Among these is Das Koan (1994), based on Van de Wetering's biography of Robert van Gulik, creator of the Judge Dee series. The English version, Judge Dee Plays His Lute, was included in the anthology with the same name.

References

External links

Obituary of Janwillem van de Wetering in the Guardian
The Philosophical Exercises of Janwillem van de Wetering
Buddhist Network Television Interview with Janwillem van de Wetering , in Dutch
Biography (through 1997) and photos at Dunn and Powell Books