Cython to the Rescue
a talk by Stefan Behnel

You just found that C library which solves that huge problem you have. It solves it completely, it's so fast, it's old, rock solid and well tested – and difficult to use, because it has that real-world, well aged C-API. Maybe even C++. So, you want to use it from Python, but there's no wrapper yet? Or worse, the existing wrapper is auto-generated and feels clumsy, slow and just as ugly to work with as C?

Give Cython a try! It's the fastest way to make Python talk (to) native code, and a pleasure to work with as a general programming language.