Dalrymple mourns the recent passing of Simon Leys aka Pierre Ryckmans:

I admired Simon Leys more than any other contemporary writer. He was, in fact, my hero, in so far as I have ever had one… From the very first page — no, from the very first sentence — of all his books and essays it is obvious that Simon Leys always knew what he was talking about…

It was George Orwell’s aim to turn political writing into an art, and in this art Leys was undoubtedly supreme.