Dr. David Bellos

Biography

David Bellos gained his doctorate in French literature from Oxford University (UK) and subsequently taught at Edinburgh, Southampton, and Manchester before coming to Princeton in 1997. He worked on nineteenth-century studies, particularly on the history of the novel and literary ideas developed in post-war French writing and film. He is a translator and biographer of Georges Perec and has written major studies of notable figures such as Jacques Tati and Romain Gary. Bellos is well-known for his irreverent introduction to translation studies, titled 'Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything' (2011). In 2017, he published 'Novel Century: The Amazing Adventure of Les Misérables,' marking his return to nineteenth-century studies from a transnational perspective. His latest book, 'Who Owns a Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs,' co-authored with Alexandre Montagu, is set to appear from Mountain Lion Press in London and W.W. Norton in New York in January 2024. He has received numerous awards, including the French-American Foundation's translation prize (1988), the Prix Goncourt de la Biographie (1994), and the Man Booker International Translator's Award (2005). He also holds the rank of Officier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and was the recipient of the 2019 Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities. Currently, he is translating Victor Hugo's novel 'Quatrevingt-treize' and is working on a popular history of the French language.

Research Interests

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