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. Simon Leys is a Renaissance man for the era of globalization. A distinguished scholar of classical Chinese art and literature and one of the first Westerners to recognize the appalling toll of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Leys also writes with unfailing intelligence, seriousness, and bite about European art, literature, history, and politics and is an unflinching observer of the way we live now.

Ryckmans's books on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, based on his first hand observation, give scathing descriptions of the cultural and political destruction, as well as denouncing the hypocrisy of its western defenders. Ryckmans is also a translator of Chinese literature, such as the Analects of Confucius, and The Treatise on Painting by Shi Tao. He writes in French and English.

The 2001 film The Emperor's New Clothes, directed by Alan Taylor, was based on Leys' novel The Death of Napoleon. Leys expressed distaste for the film, however; stating in an afterword accompanying a reprint of the novel 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."

In 2004, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.



*  The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays, 2011 (ePUB + Mobi)

The Hall of Uselessness is the most extensive collection of Leys’s essays to be published to date. In it, he addresses subjects ranging from the Chinese attitude to the past to the mysteries of Belgium and Belgitude; offers portraits of André Gide and Zhou Enlai; takes on Roland Barthes and Christopher Hitchens; broods on the Cambodian genocide; reflects on the spell of the sea; and writes with keen appreciation about writers as different as Victor Hugo, Evelyn Waugh, and Georges Simenon.Throughout, The Hall of Uselessness is marked with the deep knowledge, skeptical intelligence, and passionate conviction that have made Simon Leys one of the most powerful essayists of our time.

Quotes

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

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


Read the following articles,interview, and SEED the torrent, and don't forget to give FEEDBACK!!!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Ryckmans
 
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/simon-leys-man-who-got-it-right/
 
https://quarterlyconversation.com/the-hall-of-uselessness-by-simon-leys
 
https://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=026_ryckmans.inc&issue=026