Today we have a rather peculiar book. Ah Hai’s 《北欧的神话传说》(“Nordic myths and legends”), published in 1992 at Liaoning University Press 辽宁大学出版社 in Shenyang 沈阳. But why a book in Chinese about Nordic mythology? And who is Ah Hai 阿海? Ah Hai is one of many pen names for Gui Minhai 桂民海 (b. 1964), also known as 桂敏海 (also pronounced Gui Minhai but with a tone difference between 民 mín and 敏 mǐn) and Michael Gui among other names. Gui Minhai is a Swedish poet, publisher and writer of Chinese origin, who was abducted by Chinese intelligence officers or policemen in Thailand, later forcibly confessing on Chinese TV, before being convicted, and finally being sentenced to ten years in prison for ”illegally providing intelligence overseas” 为境外非法提供情报罪. This tragic story is well-know. However, fewer people know that Gui Minhai had a serious interest in Nordic mythology and even wrote a book about it, the calendar book of today. Gui Minhai came to Sweden in 1988 and studied history at the University of Gothenburg. He wrote a master thesis named ”Feudalism in Chinese marxist historiography” published by NIAS in Copenhagen.
The book is a collection of stories and descriptions of Nordic mythology, and apparently Gui Minhai had studied the topic in quite some detail. Gui’s book has a popular approach and probably sold quite well. It is still searchable on Chinese search engine Baidu 百度, and the book has its own page on Chinese book, film and music social network site Douban 豆瓣, where it is given generally favourable reviews.
On one of the first pages of our copy Gui Minhai has signed as Ah Hai, with a dedication to then main teacher of Chinese at our department, Mats Engberg. Engberg is here rendered as 马茨 (”Mǎcí”), which sounds more or less as ”Mats”, with Chinese pronunciation. Ah Hai asks Engberg to ”critique and correct” 教正, as is common in China when signing books. The book is signed almost exactly 30 years ago, 7 December 1992, in Gothenburg. Gui Minhai is unjustly imprisoned in China, but still greets us today through this book.