| Description |
1 online resource (543 pages) |
| Contents |
Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Foreword: Julian Barnes; Prologue: Under the Sign of Confucius; Horror of Biography; The Fruit of a Miracle; 28 September; Spitting Image; An Honest Man; A European Moralist; A Giant Viewed Up Close; I The Law, Art and Faith; 1. One Big Family; The Uncle from the Congo; On Native Tracks; Happy as a King; An Adventurer Scholar; Large Families; An African Career; 2. The Cardinal and the Abbé; The Trap of Comradeship; At Captain Blake's; First Prize for Eloquence; Experimental Proof; The Missionary Position; A Simple Soul; Every One of Us Is a Cripple |
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3. At the Grand BéguinageCantatas and Cigars; Scottish Rapture; An Interlude of Crime; An Aristocrat; II The Other Pole of Human Experience; 4. The Discovery of China; A Snakeskin Maple; Sincere Sketches; The Chinese and Their Past; The Age of the Cathedrals; An Empty Boat; A Heady Mix; 5. Formosa; A Most Mysterious Master; Scholarship to Taiwan; Ilha Formosa; The Taiwan Strait Crisis; Eight to a Room; The Last Emperor's Cousin; A Poker Player; 6. The Husband of an Exquisite Woman; Muse and Telephonist; Sailing with Shen Fu; A Fugitive Edition; The Chinese Condition; The Invisible Man |
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Supreme ReaderLeys's Idiosyncrasy; One Hell of a Forecastle; 7. Shitao; Sinological Mountain-Climbing; A Dream in Kyoto; A Hollywood Fantasy; Divine Paintings; Buddha and the Numismatist; A Dreadful Dissertation; The Bandits of Zahedan; 8. In the Hall of Uselessness; Ambassador van Gulik; Han Suyin's Umbrella; Once an Expert, Always an Expert; Driven Out of Nanyang; Like a Fish to Water; Songs of Exile; 9. A Dwarf on the Shoulders of Giants; Shitao and the Flemish Primitives; A Single Brushstroke; Life Support; Exemplary Lives; A Man of Genius Combined with a Lout; Art Dealer |
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A Series of Little ArticlesRebel, Painter and Madman; III Communism in Action; 10. An Incredible Mess; Something to Pay the Rent with; Rhinoceros Sausage; The Aztecs and May '68; The Bratislava Spring; A Kind of Egypt; 11. The Birth of Simon Leys; Pseudo-Cultural Pseudo-Revolution; A Great Enigma; Boors and Buffoons; A Birth Certificate; Impudent Conclusions; A Lingering Feeling of Embarrassment; False Notes in the Footnotes; 12. 'Frivolous' Writings; Memories of Shame; Red Fascism; The Mystery of Lin Biao; A Painful Dose of the Truth; 13. Pierre Ryckmans's New Clothes; Leys & Co |
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The Sinologist and His DoubleEugène Lenormand; A Second Birth; 14. A Belgian Shadow in Peking; On the Peking Ice Floe; Travelling in a Glass Bowl; In the Middle of a Vast Garden; A Feast in an Art Shop; The Bethlehem of China; Mao Outlives Maoism; A Failed Artist; The White Skeleton Ghost; Proust in Beidaihe; IV The Inner China; 15. A Region of the Mind; Beyond the World of Dust; The Infidel and the Ulemas; An Earth Mother; The Dead Planet; Pilgrims and Charlatans; In Praise of the Amputee; A Bland and Quiet China; Pious Bleatings; 16. The Modest Contribution of the Fool |
| Summary |
Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. He died in 2014.Writing in three languages - French, Chinese and English - he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His writing on China and on varied literary and cultural topics appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Littéraire, Quadrant and the Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People's Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the ABC's Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.This substantial biography - recently published by Gallimard in France to wide acclaim and winning an award from the Académie Francaise - draws on extensive correspondence with Ryckmans, as well as his unpublished writings. It has been translated by an internationally renowned French translator Julie Rose (based in Sydney) |
| Notes |
In the Orwellian Tradition |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 559-651) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Ryckmans, Pierre
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Leys, Simon, 1935-2014.
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| SUBJECT |
Leys, Simon, 1935-2014. fast (OCoLC)fst00020538 |
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Ryckmans, Pierre. fast (OCoLC)fst00075483 |
| Subject |
Authors, Belgian -- 20th century -- Biography
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Authors, Belgian -- 21st century -- Biography
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Sinologists -- Belgium -- Biography
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Historians -- Australia -- Biography
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College teachers -- Australia -- Biography
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Social Scientists & Psychologists.
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POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Cultural Policy.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Popular Culture.
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Authors, Belgian.
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College teachers.
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Historians.
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Sinologists.
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Australia.
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Belgium.
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Barnes, Julian
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Rose, Julie
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| ISBN |
9781925435566 |
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1925435563 |
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