André Lévy (sinologist)


André Lévy was a French sinologist.
He was born in 1925 in Tianjin. He translated many Chinese works of fiction into French.

Biography

Levy was born in Tianjin, China, in 1925, the son of a family of watchmakers and jewellers, and grew up in the French concession in Tianjin. He married Anne-Marie Lévy, the Norwegian writer. Levy studied French and Sinology, Hindi and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne, and published numerous translations from the Chinese, including La pérégrination vers l'Ouest and Fleur en fiole d'or. In 1958, he was in charge of the EFEO in Hanoi for a while, before its closure. In 1959 he went to Kyoto, where he availed himself of the rich collections of Chinese literature at the Japon Jimbun Kagaku Kenkyûsho library. He left Kyoto in 1966, and went to Hong Kong, still as an EFEO researcher. In 1974 he received his doctorate in stories and spoken language of the seventeenth century. In 1969 he was appointed Director of Chinese Studies at the University of Bordeaux. Between 1981 and 1984 he was Director of the East Asian department at Paris-VII University. In 1995 he became Emeritus Professor at l'université Bordeaux-III. He received the bronze medal of the CNRS, and was made Commandeur des Palmes académiques in 1988.

Publications

Lévy died in Bordeaux with death published in the Le Monde, 4 October 2017