Between Europe…		…and Asia

Carl D. Barkman (1919–2006)

Born in Amsterdam in 1919, Carl Barkman studied Sinology at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, with Russian as a subsidiary subject. He wrote a doctoral thesis The Return of the Torghuts from Russia to China, which was published in 1955 in Hong Kong (Journal of Oriental Studies).

Books and short stories

The Twisting Dragon

This is not a history book, but a novel, and a historical novel only in the sense that it is a mixture of fiction and historical reality; and partly autobiographical. After all that has been published about Mao Zedong’s China, its author attempts to give his own vision of Mao’s years of decline.

Princess Nirgidma (prelude to The Mandate)

Who was Nirgidma, to whom I dedicated my novel The Mandate, a Russian translation of which (entitled Nakaz Bogov) is now being published in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia? I shall try here to describe her extraordinary personality and her interesting life.