David Bellos (D.Phil, Oxford) is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He has taught at the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Southampton, and Manchester (England). He has published three books in the field of Balzac studies (Balzac Criticism in France, 1850-1900, Oxford, 1976; a critical study of La Cousine Bette, London, 1981; and an introduction to Old Goriot, Cambridge, 1987) as well as many articles on the history of fiction and the book market in 19th-century France. More recently he has concentrated on the modern French writer Georges Perec, first as his principal English translator (Life A User's Manual, 1987, which won the French-American Foundation's translation prize in 1988; W or the Memory of Childhood, 1988; Things, 1990; 53 Days, 1992) and then as the author of the first literary biography (Georges Perec. A Life in Words, Boston, 1993) which in French translation, was awarded the Prix Goncourt de la Biographie (1994). He is also the translator of novels by the distinguished Albanian writer, Ismail Kadare. His biographical study of the French filmmaker Jaques Tati appeared in 1999 and in French translation in 2002. He is currently writing a book about Romain Gary.