Simon Leys

With Stendhal is a delightful portrait of the nineteenth-century French novelist Henri Beyle, better known to us as Stendhal. Two linked texts, introduced, annotated and translated into English for the first time by Simon Leys, illuminate the life and mind of the great writer. The first piece is a set of impressions and memories written by Stendhal's famous friend Prosper...

In this deliciously sardonic fable, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from imprisonment on the isle of St. Helena. Leys writes an elegant, precise prose that ironically evokes the Napoleonic age. His exquisite tale, a gem of a book, can be read as a parable on the folly of hero-worship, the perils of self-justifying notions of destiny, and the vanity of all human...

"Most people are other people", Oscar Wilde remarked, "their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their life a mimicry, their passions a quotation…" Other People's Thoughts is a wonderfully entertaining collection of quotations. Simon Leys collects jokes and insights from great artists and thinkers, revealing a unique sensibility. Topics include adventure, youth, sex, time, toads, wine, epitaphs, and friendship. A perfect...

In 1629, the Batavia was wrecked on a coral archipelago fifty miles from the Australian continent. Most of the people on board survived, only to become victims of a visionary psychopath who, with the help of a dozen followers, organised a methodical massacre of the hapless community. Following the wreck's discovery some forty years ago, Simon Leys travelled to the...

Simon Leys' cultural and political commentary has spanned four decades, with no corner of the arts escaping his sharp eye and acerbic wit. The Hall of Uselessness forms the most complete collection yet of Leys' fascinating essays, from Quixotism to China, from the sea to literature. Leys feuds with Christopher Hitchens, ponders the popularity of Victor Hugo and analyses the...