Bernard Boursicot

Bernard Boursicot
Boursicot's passport photo circa 1960
Born (1944-08-12) 12 August 1944 (age 80)
NationalityFrench
OccupationDiplomat
PartnersShi Pei Pu (beginning 1964)
Thierry Toulet (beginning 1974)
ChildrenShi Dudu (Bertrand)

Bernard Boursicot (born 12 August 1944) is a French diplomat who was caught in a Chinese honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in espionage) by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot claimed he believed to be female. This espionage case became something of a cause célèbre in France in 1986, as Boursicot and Shi were brought to trial, owing to the nature of the unusual sexual subterfuge alleged.[1]

The case was again back under a public spotlight when a play loosely based on this affair, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, premiered in 1988 and yet again as the film adaptation of the play directed by David Cronenberg was released in 1993. Periodic restagings of the play and television airings of the film based on it continue to spark interest in the espionage case at the heart of the fictional works of art.

  1. ^ Hawthorne, Melanie C. (Winter 1997). "'Du Du That Voodoo': M. Venus and M. Butterfly". L'Esprit Créateur. 37 (4): 58–66. doi:10.1353/esp.2010.0168. JSTOR 26288055. S2CID 162228980. Specifically pages 58 through 60 discuss the sexual titillation the case caused in the French media at the time.