David Bellos

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David Michael Bellos[1] (25 June 1945 – 26 October 2025) was a British academic, translator and biographer.[2] He was the Meredith Howland Pyne professor of French and comparative literature at Princeton University in the United States,[3] and was the co-founder and first director, from 2007, of its translation and intercultural communication program.[4]

Early life and education

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Bellos was born in Rochford, England, on 25 June 1945, and educated in nearby Southend-on-Sea. He earned an undergraduate degree in medieval and modern languages (French and Russian) in 1967 and a D.Phil in French literature in 1971, both at the University of Oxford.[4]

Career

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Bellos wrote literary biographies of Romain Gary and Georges Perec, and published work on Honoré de Balzac; and his The Novel of the Century tells the story of the writing of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. He composed a biography of the filmmaker Jacques Tati, Jacques Tati: His Life and Art, and appeared in the documentary The Magnificent Tati.[5][6]

Other works include an introduction to translation studies, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and The Meaning of Everything (2011)[7] and Who Owns This Sentence. A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, written with Alexandre Montagu and published in 2024.

He translated much of the work of Perec into English, including the novel Life: A User's Manual.

Bellos won the first Man Booker International Prize for translation in 2005 for his translations of works by Albanian author Ismail Kadare, despite not speaking Albanian. His translations were done from previous French translations.[8]

Personal life and death

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Bellos' marriages to Hélène Roth-Laszlo and Susan Lendrum ended in divorce. At the time of his death he was married to Pascale Voilley Bellos.[1] He was the father of three children (and seven grandchildren), including writer and broadcaster Alex Bellos.[9] David Bellos died at his vacation home in Doussard, France, on 26 October 2025, at the age of 80.[1][10]

Awards and honours

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Publications

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Translations

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Biographies

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  • Georges Perec. A Life in Words, 1993. (Prix Goncourt de la biographie). French edition, 1994. Japanese edition, 2014. Hebrew edition, 2016. New edition in French, 2022; German translation, 2023; Turkish and Chinese translations in progress.
  • Jacques Tati: His Life and Art, 1999. French edition, 2002; Italian edition, 2022. German edition, 2024
  • Romain Gary. A Tall Story, Harvill Secker, November 2010

Other books

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  • 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 Le poisson & le bananier, Flammarion, 2012, republished in 2017 as La Traduction dans tous ses états. Spanish translation by Vicente Campos, as Un Pez en la higuera. Ariel, 2012. German translation by Silvia Morawetz as Was macht der Fisch in meinem Ohr?, Eichborn, 2013. Russian translation by Natalia Shahova, Azbuka, 2019. Traditional Chinese translation, Rye Field, Taipei, 2019. Also translated into Simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Persian.
  • The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables. London and New York, 2017. Korean edition, 2018. Japanese edition, 2018. Chinese edition, 2019
  • Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs. With Alexandre Montagu. London and New York, 2024. Italian edition 2024. Korean edition 2024. Spanish edition 2025.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Risen, Clay (20 November 2025). "David Bellos, 80, Dies; Wrestled French Wordplay Into English". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  2. ^ Bellos, David (1945-....) (in French). Catalogue général. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Accessed April 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d "David Bellos". Department of French & Italian. Princeton University. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  4. ^ a b Saxon, Jamie (14 November 2025). "David Bellos (1945-2025)". Department of French & Italian. Princeton University. Retrieved 21 November 2025. Expand from "David Bellos (1945-2025)".
  5. ^ "The Magnificent Tati". film-documentaire.fr (in French). Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  6. ^ Bellos, David Michael (October 2025). "Vita". Department of French & Italian. Princeton University. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  7. ^ Is That A Fish In Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything Archived 24 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine at Janklow & Nesbit
  8. ^ a b "The Englishing of Ismail Kadare" by David Bellos, complete review Quarterly, vol. VI, issue 2 – May 2005
  9. ^ Anon (2017). "Bellos, Alexander". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.289184. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. ^ Denis Cosnard: "David Bellos, traducteur et grand spécialiste de Georges Perec, est mort". lemonde.fr, 3 November 2025 (in French). Retrieved 5 November 2025.
  11. ^ "The 2017 American Library in Paris Book Award goes to The Novel of the Century" (Press release). American Library in Paris. Google Drive. 3 November 2017. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  12. ^ Saxon, Jamie (6 May 2019). "David Bellos and Sean Wilentz receive Behrman Award for the humanities". Princeton University. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
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