12 Facts About Simon Leys

Pierre Ryckmans, better known by his pen name Simon Leys, was a Belgian-Australian writer, essayist and literary critic, translator, art historian, sinologist, and university professor, who lived in Australia from 1970.

Simon Leys was the son of a publisher, the grandson of Alfonse Ryckmans, an Antwerp alderman and vice president of the Senate, the nephew of Pierre Ryckmans, a governor general of the Belgian Congo, and Gonzague Ryckmans, a professor at the Universite catholique de Louvain and a recognized expert of Arabic epigraphy.

Simon Leys attended the Servites de Marie primary school near his home, then studied Greek and Latin humanities at the Cardinal Mercier diocesan school in Braine-l'Alleud.

Simon Leys lived in a Kowloon squatter area, sharing with three friends a small accommodation they dubbed Wu Yong Tang and living a life redolent of an Eastern Scenes de la vie de boheme.

Simon Leys supplemented his income by writing summaries of articles from the mainland Chinese press and collecting testimonies from refugees from the mainland on behalf of the Belgian diplomatic delegation.

Simon Leys gleaned information from China News Analysis, a weekly publication produced in Hong Kong by the Jesuit scholar Father Laszlo Ladany.

Simon Leys chose "Simon" as his first name, a reference to the original name of the Apostle Peter, and "Leys" as his second name, a tribute to the main character of Victor Segalen's Rene Leys published in 1922, in which a Belgian teenager residing in Peking in the final days of the Qing Dynasty entertains his employer with accounts of the intrigues and conspiracies taking place behind the walls of the imperial palace.

Simon Leys returned to China in 1972 for six months as a cultural attache for the Belgian Embassy in Beijing.

Simon Leys died of cancer in Sydney at the age of 78, in August 2014, surrounded by his wife and four children, Etienne, Jeanne, Louis and Marc.

Simon Leys chose "Leys" after the main character of Victor Segalen's novel Rene Leys.

Simon Leys was a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, an Honorary Commander of the French Navy and member of the Academie royale de langue et de litterature francaises de Belgique.

Simon Leys received many awards including the Academie francaise's Prix Jean Walter, prix d'histoire et de sociologie, the Prix Renaudot de l'essai, the Prix Henri Gal, the Prix Femina, the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot-Calvados, the Prix Quinquernal de Literature, and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.