André Lévy (; 24 November 1925 – 3 October 2017) was a French

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

. He was born in 1925 in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

. He translated many Chinese works of fiction into French.Fogel, p. 160.

Biography

Levy was born in

, 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'' (Xiyou ji -

Journey to the West ''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the Classic Chinese Novels, great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the ...

) and ''Fleur en fiole d'or'' (

Jin Ping Mei ''Jin Ping Mei'' ()—translated into English as ''The Plum in the Golden Vase'' or ''The Golden Lotus''—is a Chinese novel of manners composed in vernacular Chinese during the latter half of the 16th century during the late Ming dynasty (1368 ...

). In 1958, he was in charge of the

EFEO The French School of the Far East (, ; also translated as The French School of Asian StudiesPreferred translation by EFEO staff. SeEFEO official website), abbreviated EFEO, is an associated college of PSL University dedicated to the study of ...

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

for a while, before its closure. In 1959 he went to

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, 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 Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, 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 The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

, and was made Commandeur des Palmes académiques in 1988.

Publications

* Lévy, André.
Fleur sur l'océan des péchés
. (book review of ''

A Flower in a Sinful Sea A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient ...

''
Archive
. ''

Études chinoises Études (French for "studies") or Étude may refer to: Compositions * Étude, a type of instrumental musical composition designed to provide practice material * ''Études'' (Chopin), by Frédéric Chopin, 1829–1839 * ''Études'' (Debussy), by ...

'', No. 1, 1982. * * ''Fleur en fiole d'or, Jin Ping Mei Cihua''. Translated and annotated by André Lévy. La Pléiade Gallimard 1985. Folio Gallimard 2004. 2 volumes . The first translation into a Western language to use the 1610 edition. * Lévy, André.
La passion de traduire
"
Archive
In: Alleton, Vivianne and Michael Lackner (editors). '' De l'un au multiple: traductions du chinois vers les langues européennes Translations from Chinese into European Languages''. Éditions de la maison des sciences de l'homme (Les Editions de la MSH, FR), 1999,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. p. 161-172. , 9782735107681. - English abstract available

Obituaries

Lévy died in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

with death published in the Le Monde, 4 October 2017

References

* Fogel, Joshua A
''De l'un au multiple: Traductions du chinois vers les langues européenes'' (book review)
''

The Journal of Asian Studies ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' is the flagship journal of the Association for Asian Studies, publishing peer-reviewed academic scholarship in the field of Asian studies. Its acceptance rate is approximately 6%. Each issue circulates over 8,20 ...

'', ISSN 0021-9118, 02/2001, Volume 60, Issue 1, pp. 159 – 161. Available from

JStor JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...

. - Review of '' De l'un au multiple: Traductions du chinois vers les langues européenes''

Notes

1925 births 2017 deaths French sinologists Translators from Chinese Translators to French French male non-fiction writers French expatriates in China Writers from Tianjin 20th-century French translators {{China-translator-stub