Karl Johannes Eskelund
Karl Johannes Eskelund (1918 - 1972) was a Danish journalist and best-selling author who wrote primarily in English. Journalism and publications. His first book, "My Chinese Wife" (1945), describes his courtship of and marriage to Chi-Yun Fei, his lifetime companion. Eskelund depicts their lives during the Japanese invasion of China and behind the American lines in China during World War II. His second book, My Danish Father, is an "as told to" biography of his father, Niels Eskelund, dentist to Prajadhipok, King of Siam. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Eskelund consulted with his publisher on  his "travel book projects". They would choose an exotic location unfamiliar to Westerners. Eskelund would research a culture first-hand and write essays about his experiences. With Chi-Yun and their daughter, Mei-Mei, later a Playboy model, the Eskelunds would spend as long as a year exploring a culture as low-budget adventurers. They would live like ordinary natives, suffering daily hardships and facing occasional dangers. Always, Eskelund would incorporate his experience, his family, and people he met in his essays. These were painted with his journalist's eye for detail, and colored by his romantic world view and  keen sense of social justice. Eskelund met and interviewed major non-Western political figures, including: Eskelund, known for his quick temper and impulsive behavior, once punched Chiang Ching-Kuo, later the President of Taiwan, in the nose. Eskelund chronicled the experiences of the extraordinary people he interviewed: Eskelund's popularity waned as his adventurer persona and book journalism became anachronisms with the emergence of live television coverage during the Vietnam War. Eskelund's own book chronicling the Vietnam War failed to attract an English publisher and two later books suffered a similar fate. Prone to depression and alcoholism, Eskelund died  by self-immolation virtually forgotten. Most of his books, including two bestsellers, are out of print. Twenty years after his death, Chi-Yun, also an author, published a memoir about their stormy and erotic marriage, Min Casanova.