Simon Leys

Simon Leys (real name Pierre Ryckmans ; born September 28, 1935 in Brussels , † August 11, 2014 in Canberra ) was a Belgian sinologist and a political writer , essayist and translator . He wrote French and English . Ryckmans has published on the ancient Chinese theory of painting, on Lu Xun's prose poems, The Weeds and the Analects of Confucius . His subjects as Simon Leys were the People's Republic of China and literature and the sea. He wrote learned and clairvoyant, a literary style characterized all of his work.

Life

The grandson of a Antwerp mayor studied law and art history at the Catholic University of Leuven . In 1955 he took part in a trip of young Belgians to the People's Republic of China, which lasted about a month. The group was received by Zhou Enlai . From 1959 he studied Chinese language, literature and art in Taiwan , Singapore and Hong Kong .

In 1964 he married the Chinese Hanfang; they had four children. The Leys settled in Australia in 1970 but retained their Belgian citizenship. Pierre Ryckmans taught Sinology, especially literature, at the Australian National University in Canberra and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993 .

Publications

When he published his account of the cultural revolution les Habits neufs du président Mao in 1971 , he did so on the advice of his publisher under the pseudonym Simon Leys ; the surname alludes to the exoticist novel René Leys (1922) by the venerated Victor Segalen , the first name to the apostle Peter .

Leys had been under no illusions about Mao's Cultural Revolution from the start . His book The New Clothes of President Mao , which received little attention in 1971, was a success with his appearance on Bernard Pivot's television program Apostrophes in 1983. The French literary talk show invited Leys and the communist journalist Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi to a China program. Macciocchi was invited to China as editor of the party newspaper Unità in the autumn of 1970 and spoke with emotion about the New Man that had emerged in China. Leys, who had observed the Cultural Revolution in Hong Kong and China, pointed to its errors, mistakes and naivete. He said it was normal for fools to do stupid things the way apple trees make apples; but every day from his window he saw the bodies floating in the Yellow River and had to contradict the idyll described by Madame Cultural Revolution .

In the red 1970s, Leys' books provoked the French intelligentsia. Favorite enemies were the Maoist post-structuralists of Tel Quel and Roland Barthes . The Maoist Michelle Loi , according to Ryckman a moderately gifted sinologist, published her pamphlet Pour Luxun in 1975 ; Réponse à Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys) (with Alfred Eibel in Lausanne ), in which she postulated Lu Xun's Maoism and also revealed Ryckman's pseudonym, perhaps with the intention of preventing Ley's future trips to the People's Republic. The attacked responded in his book Images brisées with the text L'oie et sa farce , in other words in German: The goose and its farce . (The title is a play on words with the double meaning of the word farce , in German exactly as in French.) He accused Michelle Loi of revealing his identity and denouncing. In fact, they want to prevent his constant visits there, just the idea that someone like him would like to visit their paradise is probably a real sacrilege for the left.

Simon Leys had been a member of the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique since 1990 ; he took Georges Simenon's place there. The passionate sea fan was also a member of the French writers' association Écrivain de Marine since it was founded in 2003.

Awards

• Prix ​​quinquennal de l'essai de la Communauté française de Belgique (1981) for Ombres Chinoises .
• Prix ​​Renaudot (for essays) , 2001, for Protée et autres essais .
• Prix ​​Guizot , 2003, for Les Naufragés du Batavia .
• Prix ​​mondial Cino Del Duca , 2005 for his life's work.
• Prix ​​quinquennal de littérature de la Communauté française de Belgique (2005) for the complete works.
• Honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from the Catholic University of Leuwen, 2005, et titulaire de la Chaire de poétique de cette même université la même année

The film The Emperor's New Clothes (The Emperor's New Clothes), who in his only novel La Mort de Napoléon is based, in 2001 with Ian Holm turned in the lead role.

Publications

As an author

• La vie et l'œuvre de Su Renshan, rebelle, peintre et fou (UER Asie Orientale Université Paris 7, 1970)
• Les Habits neufs du président Mao Champ libre, 1971. Reprint: LGF, 1989.
• Ombres chinoises . UGE 10/18, Laffont 1976. ((prix quinquennal de l'essai de la Communauté française de Belgique))
• Images brisées . (Laffont 1976)
• Human rights in China . (1979)
• Foreword to: Yao Mingle: L'Enquête sur la mort de Lin Biao . 1983.
• La Forêt en feu: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises . (Hermann 1983)
• Orwell, ou l'horreur de la politique . (Hermann 1984)
• La Mort de Napoleon . (Hermann 1986, Plon 2005), German translation by Lislott Pfaff: "Der Tod Napoleons" (Benziger Verlag 1988) ISBN 3-545-36457-7
• L'humeur, l'honneur, l'horreur; Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises . (Laffont 1991)
• Essais sur la Chine . (Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 1998). This anthology includes the books Les habits neufs du Président Mao , Ombres chinoises , Introduction à Lu Xun, La Mauvaise Herbe , Images brisées , La forêt en feu and L'humeur, l'honneur, l'horreur , with a foreword by Jean- François Revel .
• L'Ange et le Cachalot (Seuil 1998, Points-Essais 2002). Collect Ley's articles and forewords on literature, on China, problems of translation, written between 1990 and 1997. The title refers to Gilbert Keith Chesterton's saying that only those who strive to unite angels and octopuses have an appropriate worldview .
• Protée et autres essais . (Gallimard 2001)
• Les Naufragés du Batavia, suivi de Prosper . (Arléa 2003, Points-Seuil 2005), prix Guizot-Calvados.
• La Mer dans la littérature française . (Plon, 2003)
• Les Idées des autres, idiosyncratiquement compilées pour l'amusement des lecteurs oisifs . (Plon, 2005)
• Le bonheur des petits poissons . (JC Lattès, 2008)

Translations

• Shen Fu , Six récits au fil inconstant des jours (as Pierre Ryckmans), Larcier, 1966; Christian Bourgois 1982. Reprint for JC Lattès, 2009.
• Shitao : Les Propos sur la peinture du moine Citrouille-amère (translation and commentaries; as Pierre Ryckmans), Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, Brussels 1970. Reprint Hermann, 1984
• Kouo Mo-jo, autobiography - les années d'enfance (as Pierre Ryckmans), Gallimard, 1970
• Lu Xun La mauvaise herbe (as Pierre Ryckmans), UGE 10/18, 1975
• Jao Tsong-Yi, peintures monochromes de Dun-Huang (as Pierre Ryckmans), Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 1978
• Chen Jo-hsi , le préfet Yin , Denoël, 1980.
• Confucius, entretiens (as Pierre Ryckmans), Gallimard, 1987.
• Richard Henry Dana, Jr. , Deux années sur le gaillard d'avant , Laffont 1990, Petite bibliothèque Payot, 1995. Translation of Two Years before the Mast .
• Analects of Confucius , Norton, 1997 (English).

Web links

• Literature by and about Simon Leys in the catalog of the German National Library
• Simon Leys in theInternet Movie Database(English)
• Critique des Naufragés du Batavia par Philippe Sollers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rowan Callick: " Chairman's New Clothes author Pierre Ryckmans this aged 78 ," The Australian , August 11, 2014.
2. ↑ In August 2007 the Belgian consul in Australia revoked the Belgian nationality of Ryckman's children Marc et Louis Ryckmans, born in Hong Kong in 1967, because certain applications had not been made ( Lalibre.be 31/08/2007 ). The affair dragged on and was not resolved in the next year either ( Lalibre.be 14/09/2008 ).
3. ↑ A2 - 05/27/1983
4. ↑ Documents archivés sur Simon Leys sur le site de l'INA consulté le 21 mars 2010.
5. ↑ " Il est normal que les imbéciles profèrent des imbécilités comme les pommiers produisent des fries, mais moi qui ai vu chaque jour depuis ma fenêtre le fleuve Jaune charrier des cadavres, je ne peux accepter cette présentation idyllique par madame de la Révolution ."
6. ↑ "La seule idée qu'un individu comme Simon Leys puisse constamment souhaiter revoir la Chine, qu'il ait noué dans ce monde-là les liens les plus chers, ne leur paraît pas seulement incompréhensible, elle leur est proprement sacrilège".
7. ↑ L'écrivain et sinologue Pierre Ryckmans est mort , obituary on Le Monde.fr of August 11, 2014 (French)