Is That a Fish in Your Ear?

Translation and the Meaning of Everything

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Summary

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos asks: how do we really make ourselves understood to other people? This funny, wise and life-affirming language book shows how, from puns to poetry, news bulletins to the Bible, Asterix to Swedish films, translation is at the heart of everything we do - and makes us who we are.

Selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2011

'A wonderful, witty book ... richly original, endlessly fascinating ... for anyone interested in words' Economist, Books of the Year

'A scintillating bouillabaisse ... spiced with good and provocative things' Literary Review

'Dazzlingly inventive' The New York Times

'Clear and lively ... There is nothing quite like it' Spectator

Reviews

In the guise of a book about translation this is a richly original cultural history ... A book for anyone interested in words, language and cultural anthropology. Mr Bellos's fascination with his subject is itself endlessly fascinating
The Economist

About the author

David Bellos

David Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature at Princeton University, where he also teaches Comparative Literature. He is the author of many books and articles on nineteenth-century fiction, alongside biographies of three icons of French culture in the twentieth century: Georges Perec, Jacques Tati and Romain Gary. He is also a well-known translator and the author of Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation. David Bellos was recently awarded the rank of officier in the Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres for his services to French culture.

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