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. Leys's writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Litteraire, and other periodicals. Among his books are Chinese Shadows, The Death of Napoleon (forthcoming from NYRB Classics), Other People's Thoughts, and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Boyer lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Femina, the Prix Guizot, and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.
"That early on I developed a critical distance from the ideologies of the epoch I owe to writers like Simon Leys and Guy Debord. They kept me from being a dupe." Olivier Assayas "The message these pieces drive home with wit and uncommon clarity is this: there is a central truth that may-no, must!-be spoken. There is a manner by which life may be lived fully and well. And there is a richer, deeper, grander conception of human nature than we are currently given to understand. To see Leys's essays assembled is to appreciate, if you haven't already, the range of philosophical, artistic and literary interests that sustain even his slightest productions." Geordie Williamson, The Australian
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