We could learn from Victor Hugo
POLITICIANS today have much to learn from Victor Hugo, says acclaimed biographer and translator Professor David Bellos, who will be in the island in May to take part in the Guernsey Literary Festival.
'Hugo wasn't interested in politics in the tribal sense: he was interested in big principles and big issues—abolition of capital punishment, extension of education, eradication of poverty,' says David.
'What I like about him is that he stuck to his guns and never stopped working.
'What is most important is that he believed in the reconciliation of the social classes and in the inevitability of human progress.
'Today's politicians should listen to him more, because in the longer run, Victor Hugo has to be right.'
English-born David Bellos is Director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University in the United States, where he is also a professor of French and comparative literature.
He has won many awards for his translations, including the Man Booker International Translator's Award and the Prix Goncourt.
David's latest book, published only this month to great acclaim and already featured as a Radio 4 Book of the Week, is The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables, which brings to life the fascinating story of how Hugo managed to write his epic novel despite a revolution, a coup d'état and political exile, and explores why the moral and social message of Hugo's classic is just as important for our century as it was for its own.
