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Simon Leys: Navigator between Worlds
An award-winning biography of one of the greats.
Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. He died in 2014.
Writing in three languages - French, Chinese and English - he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His writing on China and on varied literary and cultural topics appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Litteraire, Quadrant and the Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People's Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the ABC's Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.
This substantial biography - recently published by Gallimard in France to wide acclaim and winning an award from the Academie Francaise - draws on extensive correspondence with Ryckmans, as well as his unpublished writings. It has been translated by an internationally renowned French translator Julie Rose (based in Sydney).
Philippe Paquet is a Belgian journalist and sinologist. He was president of the Society of Editors of La Libre Belgique from 1997 to 2007. He is a lecturer at the Free University of Brussels and at the Higher Institute of Translators and Interpreters. For La Libre Belgique he covers China and the United States. His previous biography, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: A Century of Chinese History, won numerous literary prizes.
Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. He died in 2014.
Writing in three languages - French, Chinese and English - he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His writing on China and on varied literary and cultural topics appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Litteraire, Quadrant and the Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People's Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the ABC's Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.
This substantial biography - recently published by Gallimard in France to wide acclaim and winning an award from the Academie Francaise - draws on extensive correspondence with Ryckmans, as well as his unpublished writings. It has been translated by an internationally renowned French translator Julie Rose (based in Sydney).
Philippe Paquet is a Belgian journalist and sinologist. He was president of the Society of Editors of La Libre Belgique from 1997 to 2007. He is a lecturer at the Free University of Brussels and at the Higher Institute of Translators and Interpreters. For La Libre Belgique he covers China and the United States. His previous biography, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: A Century of Chinese History, won numerous literary prizes.
- GenresChina
692 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2016
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50 people want to read
About the author
Philippe Paquet
14 books2 followersPhilippe Paquet is a Belgian journalist and sinologist. He was president of the Society of Editors of La Libre Belgique from 1997 to 2007. He is a lecturer at the Free University of Brussels and at the Higher Institute of Translators and Interpreters.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 12, 2018
#NonFicReads18
Simon Leys: considered the most important intellectual to have lived in Australia.
This expert on China dared to criticize
…Mao’s cultural revolution and
…the gullibility of western sinophiles.
Review
Simon Leys: considered the most important intellectual to have lived in Australia.
This expert on China dared to criticize
…Mao’s cultural revolution and
…the gullibility of western sinophiles.
Review
March 23, 2024
Tremendous biography of Pierre Ryckmans (aka Simon Leys) - someone whom I deeply admire.
July 20, 2020
Ce livre est une biographie très détaillée, très intéressante et parfois, je dois l'admettre aussi un peu fastidieuse, d'un personnage fascinant, de ce que le XXème siècle pourrait, comme à la Renaissance, qualifier d'humaniste - et il y en eu assez peu dans ce siècle - en bref du très grand sinologue Pierre Ryckmans, alias Simon Leys.
Cela permet bien évidemment de connaître cet homme extraordinaire, qui a autant apporté à la science politique sur son domaine de prédilection - La Chine - que ne l'avait fait George Orwell en son temps lorsqu'il parlait de l'URSS en écrivant 1984. Leys comme Orwell est un homme qui a eu raison avant tout le monde et surtout CONTRE tout le monde, en ces temps très idéologisés que furent les années 70. Les passages où Paquet nous raconte les batailles épiques que le pauvre Leys a dû livrer contre la cohorte des maoïstes de salon, les avanies qu'il a dû subir lorsqu'il a publié ses deux premiers essais (Les habits neufs du président Mao et Ombres chinoises) ou son légendaire passage à l'émission Apostrophes sont des moments de bravoure du livre.
Une biographie donc complète, érudite, révérencieuse aussi (Paquet est un ami de Leys et sans conteste, et avec raison, un de ses admirateurs) que je ne conseillerais que à ceux qui sont déjà familiers de l'œuvre du sinologue et qui veulent en savoir plus sur ce savant admirable, amoureux de la Chine, de la mer et de la littérature.
Cela permet bien évidemment de connaître cet homme extraordinaire, qui a autant apporté à la science politique sur son domaine de prédilection - La Chine - que ne l'avait fait George Orwell en son temps lorsqu'il parlait de l'URSS en écrivant 1984. Leys comme Orwell est un homme qui a eu raison avant tout le monde et surtout CONTRE tout le monde, en ces temps très idéologisés que furent les années 70. Les passages où Paquet nous raconte les batailles épiques que le pauvre Leys a dû livrer contre la cohorte des maoïstes de salon, les avanies qu'il a dû subir lorsqu'il a publié ses deux premiers essais (Les habits neufs du président Mao et Ombres chinoises) ou son légendaire passage à l'émission Apostrophes sont des moments de bravoure du livre.
Une biographie donc complète, érudite, révérencieuse aussi (Paquet est un ami de Leys et sans conteste, et avec raison, un de ses admirateurs) que je ne conseillerais que à ceux qui sont déjà familiers de l'œuvre du sinologue et qui veulent en savoir plus sur ce savant admirable, amoureux de la Chine, de la mer et de la littérature.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews