Alex Bellos | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Alex Bellos in 2011 | |
| Born | Alexander Bellos 1969 (age 55–56)[1] |
| Education | Hampton Park Comprehensive School Richard Taunton Sixth Form College |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (BA, MA) |
| Employers | |
| Awards | British Book Awards[when?] |
| Website | alexbellos |
Alexander Bellos (born 1969)[1] is aBritish writer, broadcaster and mathematics communicator.[3][4][5][6] He is the author of books aboutBrazil andmathematics, as well as having a column inThe Guardian newspaper.[2][7]
Alex Bellos was born inOxford and grew up inEdinburgh andSouthampton. He was educated atHampton Park Comprehensive School andRichard Taunton Sixth Form College in Southampton.[1] He went on to study mathematics and philosophy atCorpus Christi College, Oxford,[1] where he was the editor of the student paperCherwell.[citation needed]
Bellos's first job was working forThe Argus[1] inBrighton before moving toThe Guardian in London in 1994. From 1998 to 2003 he was South America correspondent ofThe Guardian,[2][8] and wroteFutebol: the Brazilian Way of Life.[9] The book was well received in the UK, where it was nominated for sports book of the year at theBritish Book Awards. In the US, it was included as one ofPublishers Weekly's books of the year. They wrote: “Compelling...Alternately funny and dark...Bellos offers a cast of characters as colorful as a Carnival parade”. In 2006, heghostwrotePelé: The Autobiography, about the soccer playerPelé, which was a number one best-seller in the UK.[10][11]
Returning to live in the UK, Bellos decided to write about mathematics. The bookAlex's Adventures in Numberland was published in 2010 and spent four months inThe Sunday Times' top ten best-sellers' list.The Daily Telegraph described the book as a "mathematical wonder that will leave you hooked on numbers." The book was shortlisted for three awards in the UK, including theBBCSamuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2010.[12]The Guardian reported that Bellos's book was narrowly beaten into second place. Chairman of the judgesEvan Davis broke with protocol to discuss their deliberations: "[Bellos's] was a book everyone thought would be nice if it won, because it would be good for people to read a maths book. Some of us wished we'd read it when we were 14 years old. If we'd taken the view that this is a book everyone ought to read, then it might have gone that way."[13]
Several translations of the book have been published. The Italian version,Il meraviglioso mondo dei numeri, won both the €10,000 Galileo Prize for science books[14][15][16] and the 2011 Peano Prize[17] for mathematics books. In the United States, the book was given the titleHere's Looking at Euclid.[18]
Alex Through The Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life was published in 2014 and received positive reviews.The Daily Telegraph wrote: “If anything, Looking Glass is a better work than Numberland – it feels more immediate, more relevant and more fun.”[19]Its US title wasThe Grapes of Math, about whichThe New York Times said Bellos was: “a charming and eloquent guide to math’s mysteries…There’s an interesting fact or mathematical obsessive on almost every page. And for its witty flourishes, it’s never shallow. Bellos doesn’t shrink from delving into equations, which should delight aficionados who relish those kinds of details.”
Bellos presented the BBC TV seriesInside Out Brazil (2003),[20] and also authored the documentaryEt Dieu créa…le foot, about football in theAmazon rainforest, which was shown on theNational Geographic Channel.[21] His short films on the Amazon have appeared onBBC,More4 andAl Jazeera.[4][22] He also appears frequently on theBBC talking about mathematics. HisRadio 4 documentaryNirvana by Numbers was shortlisted for best radio programme in the 2014 Association of British Science Writers Awards.
Bellos appeared in the 2023Christmas University Challenge series as team captain of Oxford's Corpus Christi team, reaching the final, only to be beaten by the Middlesex team.
Bellos lives in London[29] and is married with children.[1] His fatherDavid Bellos[1] (1945–2025) was a translator, biographer and academic[30] and his mother is Hungarian.[31]
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