David Bellos

Bellos’ research topics have included Honoré de Balzac and Georges Perec. Bellos published a translation of Perec’s most famous novel, Life A User’s Manual, in 1987. He won the first Man Booker International Prize for translation in 2005 for his translations of works by Albanian author Ismail Kadare and has written three literary biographies and an introduction to translation studies, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and The Meaning of Everything in 2011.

His book, The Novel of the Century, tells the story of how Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables. English-born Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University in the United States. He was director of Princeton’s Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication from its inception in 2007 until 2019.