Tzvetan Todorov (/ˈtɒdərɔːv, -rɒv/; French: [tsvetan tɔdɔʁɔv, dzve-]; Bulgarian: Цветан Тодоров; 1 March 1939 – 7 February 2017) was a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist.

Todorov was appointed to his post as a director of research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1968.

Todorov published a total of 39 books, including The Poetics of Prose (1971), Introduction to Poetics (1981), The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (1982), Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle (1984), Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps (1991), On Human Diversity (1993), A French Tragedy: Scenes of Civil War, Summer 1944 (1994), Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria (1999), Hope and Memory (2000), Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of Humanism (2002), In Defence of the Enlightenment (2009), Memory as a Remedy for Evil (2010), The Totalitarian Experience (2011), The Inner Enemies of Democracy (2014) and Insoumis (2015).

Todorov's historical interests focused on such crucial issues as the conquest of The Americas and the German Nazi concentration camps.

Todorov uses Alvaro from Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable amoureux as an example of a fantastic event.

In one of his major works, Facing the Extreme, Todorov asks whether it is true the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulags revealed that in extreme situations "all traces of moral life evaporate as men become beasts locked in a merciless struggle for survival" (31–46).

However, in his reading of actual survivor testimonies, Todorov says the picture is not that bleak, that there are many examples of inmates helping each other and showing compassion in human relationships despite the inhumane conditions and terror.

He concludes that life in the camps and gulag did not follow the law of the jungle and that the counter-examples are numerous, even in Levi's work.

Tzvetan Todorov was born in the family of Todor Borov, a Bulgarian linguist and intellectualist from the early 20th century.