David Bellos (born 1945) is an English-born translator and biographer. Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of

French Literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than F ...

and Professor of

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in the United States. He was director of Princeton's Program in Translation and

Intercultural Communication Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear ...

from its inception in 2007 until July 1, 2019.

Biography

Bellos' research topics have included

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

and

Georges Perec Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Hol ...

. Bellos published a translation of Perec's most famous novel, ''

Life A User's Manual ''Life A User's Manual'' (the original title is ''La Vie mode d'emploi'') is Georges Perec's most famous novel, published in 1978, first translated into English by David Bellos in 1987. Its title page describes it as "novels", in the plural, the ...

'', in 1987. He won the first

Man Booker International Prize The International Booker Prize (formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize) is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize was announced ...

for translation in 2005 for his translations of works by Albanian author

Ismail Kadare Ismail Kadare (; spelled Ismaïl Kadaré in French; born on 28 January 1936) is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a leading international literary figure and intellectual. He focused on poetry until the pu ...

, despite not speaking Albanian. His translations were done from previous French translations."The Englishing of Ismail Kadare"
by David Bellos, '' complete review Quarterly'', vol. VI, issue 2 – May 2005 Bellos has written three literary biographies and an introduction to

translation studies Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. As an interdiscipline, translation studies borrows much from the vari ...

, ''Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and The Meaning of Everything'' (2011). His most recent book, ''The Novel of the Century'', tells the story of how Victor Hugo wrote ''Les Misérables''. He appears in ''The Magnificent Tati'', a documentary about the filmmaker

Jacques Tati Jacques Tati (; born Jacques Tatischeff, ; 9 October 1907 – 5 November 1982) was a French mime, film-maker, actor and screenwriter. In an ''Entertainment Weekly'' poll of the Greatest Movie Directors, he was voted the 46th greatest of all time ...

. He is the father of writer and broadcaster Alex Bellos.

Awards and honours

*2005

, for translation of works by

*2015 ''Officier'' in the ''Ordre national des Arts et des Lettres'' *2017

American Library in Paris Book Award American Library in Paris Book Award was created in 2013 with a donation from the Florence Gould Foundation. It is awarded each November with a remunerative prize of $5,000 to "a work written originally in English that deepens and stimulates our und ...

winner for ''The Novel of the Century'' *2019 Howard T. Berhman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities, Princeton University

Publications

Translations

: ''

'', 1987 (French-American Foundation's translation prize); new edition, 2008 *Georges Perec: ''

W, or the Memory of Childhood ''W, or the Memory of Childhood'' (french: W ou le souvenir d'enfance) is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction by Georges Perec, published in 1975. Perec's novel consists of alternating chapters of autobiography and of a fictional story, divid ...

'', 1988 *Georges Perec: '' Things: A Story of the Sixties'', 1990 *Georges Perec: ''53 Days'', 1992 *

: ''

The Pyramid A pyramid is a structure with triangular lateral surfaces converging to an apex. Pyramid may also refer to: Anatomy and medicine * Petrous part of the temporal bone, the pyramid * Pyramid (brainstem), the anterior part of medulla oblongata Ga ...

'', 1995 *Ismail Kadare:''

The File on H ''The File on H.'' is a novel by the Albanian author Ismail Kadare. It first appeared in Albanian in 1981 under the title ''Dosja H''. Plot In this often-comic novel, two Homeric scholars from Ireland by way of Harvard University plan to investi ...

'', 1996 * Georges Ifrah: ''A Universal History of Numbers'', 2000 *Ismail Kadare: ''

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost ''Spring Flowers, Spring Frost'' is a 2000 novel by Albanian author Ismail Kadare set in the 1990s when feuding and vendetta had returned to the country after the fall of the communist regime. The English translation by David Bellos was first publ ...

'', 2001 *

Fred Vargas Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau (born 7 June 1957), a French historian, archaeologist and novelist. As a historian and archeologist, she is known for her work on the Black Death. Her crime fiction ''policiers'' (pol ...

: ''Have Mercy On Us All'', 2003 *Fred Vargas: ''Seeking Whom He May Devour'', 2004 *Ismail Kadare: '' The Successor'', 2005 *Ismail Kadare: ''

Agamemnon's Daughter ''Agamemnon's Daughter'' ( sq, Vajza e Agamemnonit) is a 2003 novella by the Albanian writer and inaugural International Man Booker Prize winner Ismail Kadare. It is the first part of a diptych of which the second and longer part is '' The Succe ...

'', 2006 *Ismail Kadare: '' The Siege'', 2008 *

Hélène Berr Hélène Berr (27 March 1921 – 10 April 1945) was a French woman of Jewish ancestry and faith, who documented her life in a diary during the time of Nazi occupation of France. In France she is considered to be a "French Anne Frank". Life ...

: ''Journal'', 2008 *Georges Perec: ''Thoughts of Sorts'', 2009 *

Romain Gary Romain Gary (; 2 December 1980), born Roman Kacew (, and also known by the pen name Émile Ajar), was a French novelist, diplomat, film director, and World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two names. He i ...

: ''

Hocus Bogus ''Hocus Bogus'' (french: Pseudo) is a 1976 novel by the French writer Romain Gary, published under the pseudonym Émile Ajar. The book was written after Paul Pavlowitch, the son of Gary's cousin, had been presented as the man behind the pseudonym ...

'', 2010 *Georges Perec: ''The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise'', 2011 * Georges Simenon: ''Pietr the Latvian'', 2013 *Daniel Anselme: ''On Leave'', 2014 *

: '' Twilight of the Eastern Gods'', 2014 *

: ''Portrait of a Man'', 2014 (UK), 2015 (USA) *

: ''I Remember'', 2014 (USA) (with Philip Terry) *

Paul Fournel Paul Fournel (born 20 May 1947 in Saint-Étienne) is a French writer, poet, publisher, and cultural ambassador. He was educated at the École normale supérieure of Saint-Cloud (1968–1972). Fournel wrote his master's thesis on Raymond Queneau ...

, ''Dear Reader'', 2014 (UK)

Biographies

*''Georges Perec. A Life in Words'', 1993. (

Prix Goncourt de la biographie The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward ...

). French edition, 1994. Japanese edition, 2014. Hebrew edition, 2016. New edition in French, forthcoming 2021; German, Turkish and Chinese translations in progress. *''

. His Life and Art'', 1999. French edition, 2002 *''

. A Tall Story'', Harvill Secker, November 2010

Other books

*''Balzac Criticism in France, 1850–1900. The Making of a Reputation''. Oxford, 1976 *''La Cousine Bette. A Critical Guide''. London, 1981 *''Old Goriot'' (Landmarks of World Literature). Cambridge, 1987. Hebrew translation, Tek Aviv, 1990. *''Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything''. London and New York, 2011. Paperback edition, 2012.
French translation by Daniel Loayza as ', Flammarion, 2012, republished in 2017 as ''La Traduction dans tous ses états''. Spanish translation by Vicente Campos, as '. Ariel, 2012. German translation by Silvia Morawetz as ', Eichborn, 2013. Russian translation by Natalia Shahova, Azbuka, 2019. Traditional Chinese translation, Rye Field, Taipei, 2019 *''The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of'' Les Misérables. London and New York, 2017. Korean edition, 2018. Japanese edition, 2018. Chinese edition, forthcoming 2019

References

External links

*
"I, Translator"
by David Bellos, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (20 March 2010)
Review of ''Georges Perec: A Life in Words''
by

Alice Kaplan Alice Yaeger Kaplan (June 22, 1954) is an American literary critic, translator, historian, and educator. She is the Sterling Professor of French and Director of the Whitney Center for the Humanities at Yale University. Biography Alice Yaeger Kapla ...

*
Review
by Michael Hoffmann of ''Is That a Fish in Your Ear?'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' (22 September 2011)
"Babbling Barbarians: How Translators Keep Us Civilized: A conversation with David Bellos"
''Ideas Roadshow'', 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bellos, David French–English translators British biographers Princeton University faculty 1945 births Place of birth missing (living people) Living people The New York Review of Books people Prix Goncourt de la Biographie winners