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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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.
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."