Cay Van Ash (born in Sussex, England in 1918; died in Paris, France in April 1994) was a Professor of English Literature at

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

in Japan and a writer. In 1935, the 17-year-old pedalled his bicycle to interview his literary hero

Sax Rohmer Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in Da ...

. The two struck up a friendship. Van Ash lived with the Rohmers for 15 months, while Rohmer taught him the mechanics of writing. He was employed as Rohmer's secretary for a number of years before moving to Japan in the 1950s. They continued to correspond until Rohmer's death in 1959. In 1971, Rohmer's widow Elizabeth contacted Van Ash to help her complete a biography of her husband, ''Master of Villainy'', which was published the following year. Whilst teaching in Japan, Van Ash was licensed by the Rohmer estate to write a

continuation In computer science, a continuation is an abstract representation of the control state of a computer program. A continuation implements ( reifies) the program control state, i.e. the continuation is a data structure that represents the computati ...

Fu Manchu Dr. Fu Manchu () is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, com ...

novel, ''Ten Years Beyond Baker Street'' (1984). Set in April 1914 in Sussex, it featured Dr. Petrie calling Sherlock Holmes out of retirement after Nayland Smith is abducted. A second novel, ''The Fires of Fu Manchu'', set during the First World War, followed in 1987. A third novel, ''The Seal of Fu Manchu'', was announced in 1988. At the time of his death in 1994, Van Ash and his wife were living in Paris where he was researching the novel's setting. The manuscript was unfinished at the time of his death and is now believed lost. Van Ash taught at Waseda University from 1961 until his death.

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A Footnote on the Yellow Peril
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ash, Cay Van 1918 births 1994 deaths British thriller writers 20th-century British novelists British male novelists British expatriates in Japan