Tzvetan Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov (1939 – 2017) is a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist. He is the author of many books and essays, which have had a significant influence in anthropology, sociology, semiotics, literary theory, intellectual history and culture theory.

Todorov earned an M.A. in philology at the University of Sofia in 1963, but he enrolled at the University of Paris to obtain his Ph.D. in 1966 and his doctorat ès lettres in 1970.

Todorov was appointed to his post as a director of research at the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in 1968. In 1970, he helped to found the journal Poétique, of which he remained one of the managing editors until 1979. With structuralist literary critic Gérard Genette, he edited the "Collection Poétique", the series of books on literary theory published by Éditions de Seuil, until 1987. He was a visiting professor at several universities in the US, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley.

Todorov published more than 40 books, including Poétique de la prose (1971.), La Conquête de l'Amérique: la question de l'autre (1982.), Mémoire du mal, tentation du bien (2000), L'Esprit des Lumières (2006), L'Expérience totalitaire: la signature humaine (2011), Les Ennemis intimes de la démocratie (2014), Le Triomphe de l'artiste. La révolution et les artistes. Russie: 1917-1941 (2015) itd.

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