Simon Leys

Simon Leys was the pen name of Pierre Ryckmans (1935–2014), a Belgian-Australian sinologist, essayist, and translator known for incisive writing on China.

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Pierre Ryckmans: Belgian-Australian sinologist and writer whose pen name was Simon Leys. This is Leys’s birth name and the identity behind his public literary name.
The Chairman's New Clothes: Simon Leys’s 1971 book criticizing Western accounts of the Cultural Revolution in China. This early polemic established his case against credulous reporting on Maoist China.
Maoism: A political ideology derived from Mao Zedong’s theories and practices of revolution and governance. Leys attacked Western Maoism’s idealized picture of China by emphasizing repression and lived conditions.
The Death of Napoleon: Simon Leys’s 1986 novella imagining Napoleon’s escape from exile on Saint Helena. The fiction reveals a narrative side of an author chiefly associated with China and political essays.
Lu Xun: Chinese writer whose fiction and essays helped establish modern Chinese literature. Leys translated and wrote about Lu Xun, whose skeptical literary voice resonated with his criticism.
Chinese Shadows: Simon Leys’s 1974 book examining Chinese society and politics after the Cultural Revolution began. It extends his critique through observations of everyday life and political institutions.
Alain Badiou: French philosopher whose political thought has defended aspects of Maoism and revolutionary politics. Badiou represents a later philosophical defense of Maoism that contrasts with Leys’s historical criticism.
The Burning Forest: A collection of Simon Leys’s literary essays on writers, books, and reading. These essays show how Leys applied close reading and historical judgment to literature beyond China.
Zhou Enlai: Chinese Communist revolutionary and statesman who served as premier of the People’s Republic of China. Leys’s account of the Cultural Revolution challenged idealized Western portrayals of Chinese leaders, including Zhou.
The Analects: A collection of sayings and conversations associated with Confucius and his followers. Leys translated this foundational Chinese text, linking his political criticism with classical scholarship.