(Paperback)

(Paperback)

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

(Paperback)

A new paperback edition of this essential collection of essays from an eminent critic. Simon Leys' cultural and political commentary has spanned four decades, with no corner of the arts escaping his sharp eye and acerbic wit.

(Paperback)

In 1629, the ship Batavia was wrecked on the edge of a coral archipelago. Most people on board escaped, only to become victims of a psychopath who organised a methodical massacre of this hapless community. Leys travelled to the site, and learned that the island was habitable, thus, the massacre appears all the more aberrant.

(Paperback)

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.

(Paperback)

Here Simon Leys translates for the first time into English an essay by the remarkable Simone Weil -- philosopher, activist, mystic -- which makes a case for the corrupting effect of political parties on political life. This is a dazzling account of the perils of political conformity, written with brilliant clarity and wit.