Born and educated in Melbourne, West left Australia to do doctorates at Lille and Cambridge, as well as post-doctoral work in Cologne. Since then he has held the position of Professor of English Literature at the Free University of Berlin. His areas of research range from early modern drama via eighteenth-century and modernist literature to contemporary transcultural literature, including Australian literature and cultural studies.
The various branches of West's family are of Croatian, Argentinian and Karen extraction. Upon marriage in 2004 he changed his name to West-Pavlov.
