diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2023-12-25-10-06-59.gh-issue-101778.JfhRkx.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2023-12-25-10-06-59.gh-issue-101778.JfhRkx.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3763e8404c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2023-12-25-10-06-59.gh-issue-101778.JfhRkx.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Fix build error when there's a dangling symlink in the directory containing
+``ffi.h``.
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 4f122b62e0e..ad8fb81b218 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -224,6 +224,7 @@ def is_macosx_sdk_path(path):
 
 def grep_headers_for(function, headers):
     for header in headers:
+        if not os.path.exists(header): continue
         with open(header, 'r', errors='surrogateescape') as f:
             if function in f.read():
                 return True