THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON

In this deliciously sardonic fable, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from imprisonment on the isle of St. Helena, where a petty officer will impersonate him. The exiled emperor becomes a cabin hand on a crayfish schooner, returns to the Continent under an alias, takes a tourist excursion to the battlefield of Waterloo and eventually makes his way to Paris, where loyal Bonapartists are mourning the death of their hero. Leys writes an elegant, precise prose that ironically evokes the Napoleonic age.

Teasing, imaginative and superbly entertaining, THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON is a modern classic. It won the prestigious Christina Stead Prize for fiction, The Independent (UK) Foreign Fiction Award and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Literary Translation. This award- winning novel was also made into a motion picture starring Ian Holm. With an afterword by the author.

Simon Leys (1935-2014) 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. His writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Littéraire, Quadrant and The Monthly. He is also the award-winning author of several novels.