Pierre Ryckmans
Pierre Ryckmans (born 28 September 1935, in Brussels, Belgium), who also uses the pen-name Simon Leys, is a writer, sinologist, essayist and literary critic.
He studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain), Chinese language, literature and art in Taiwan. He went to Hong Kong, before settling down in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University, where he supervised the honours thesis of former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd[1] and later was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney, from 1987 to 1993.
In 1971, on the advice of his publisher, he decided to adopt a pseudonym before publishing Les habits neufs du président Mao, in order to avoid the risk of becoming a persona non grata in the People's Republic of China. He chose "Leys" after the main character of Victor Segalen's novel René Leys (published in 1922).[2]
In 2004, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.
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[edit] Works
Ryckmans wrote a series of famous books about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He is also a translator of Chinese literature, such as the Analects of Confucius, and The Treatise on Painting by Shi Tao. Pierre Ryckmans writes in French and English.
[edit] Bibliography
- Shitao's Les propos sur la peinture du moine Citrouille-amère (translation and comments, 1970)
- La vie et l'oeuvre de Su Renshan, rebelle, peintre et fou (1971).
- Les habits neufs du président Mao (The Chairman's new clothes: Mao and the cultural revolution, 1971)
- Ombres chinoises (Chinese Shadows, 1976)
- Images brisées (1976)
- Human rights in China (1979)
- Broken Images (1981)
- Orwell, ou l'horreur de la politique (1984)
- La forêt en feu: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (The burning forest: Essays on Chinese culture and politics) (1987)
- La Mort de Napoléon (The Death of Napoleon, 1986)
- L'humeur, l'honneur, l'horreur: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (1991)
- Analects of Confucius (translation, 1997)
- Essais sur la Chine (Laffont, 1998, coll. "Bouquins")
- L'Ange et le Cachalot (1998)
- The Angel and the Octopus (collected essays 1983-1998, published February 1999) ISBN 1-875989-44-7
- Protée et autres essais (2001, was awarded the 2001 Prix Renaudot de l'Essai)
- Deux années sur le gaillard d'avant (2002)
- Les Naufragés du Batavia (The Wreck of the Batavia: A True Story, 2003, was awarded the Prix Guizot)
- La mer dans la littérature française (Plon, 2003)
- Lu Xun's La mauvaise herbe (French translation)
- Other People's Thoughts - Idiosyncratically compiled by Simon Leys for the amusement of idle readers (Black Inc.) (2007)
[edit] Movies
The 2001 movie The Emperor's New Clothes, directed by Alan Taylor, was based on Leys' novel The Death of Napoleon. Ley's expressed distaste for The Emperor's New Clothes however; stating in an afterword accompanying a reprint of "The Death of Napoleon" that "This latter avatar [The Emperor's New Clothes], by the way, was both sad and funny: sad, because Napoleon was interpreted to perfection by an actor (Ian Holm) whose performance made me dream of what could have been achieved had the producer and director bothered to read the book."
[edit] Notes
- Nicholas Stuart: "Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography", Scribe, 2007
- ^ Simon Leys: "Victor Segalen, les tribulations d'un poète en Chine", in Figaro Littéraire February 3, 2005
[edit] External links
- Simon Leys: The burning forest: "Human Rights in China"
- IMDb entry for The Emperor's New Clothes
- Warren, David, How evil triumphs, Ottawa Citizen, June 10, 2007.
- Extract from the 1996 Boyer Lectures - Pierre Ryckmans
- An Interview with Pierre Ryckmans, Chinese Heritage Quarterly, June 2011
