David Bellos

Howland Pyne Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Princeton University

US

Biographie

A writer and translator, David Bellos teaches French and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His biographies of George Perec, Jacques Tati, and Romain Gary have been translated into French, German, Italian, German, and Chinese. Other works include a study of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables and an introduction to translation studies entitled Is That A Fish in Your Ear? (2011). His latest book, Who Owns this Sentence (2024), is a cultural history of copyrights.

Articles (1)

enDavid Bellos

Romain Gary: How to Be Someone Else

The novelist Romain Gary had two connected but quite distinct literary careers, in two languages and under four pseudonyms. This essay will look at the way he managed to juggle these various professional identities, with a rather unique understanding of transatlantic cultural relations.