Michael Hofmann

Biography

Michael Hofmann was born in Freiburg im Breisgau (West Germany), the son of German novelist Gert Hofmann and his wife Eva (Thomas) Hofmann, a teacher. He grew up in a family with a literary tradition. His maternal grandfather edited the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. Hofmann's family first moved to Bristol in 1961, and later to Edinburgh. He was educated at Winchester College, and then studied English Literature and Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1979. For the next four years, he pursued postgraduate study at the University of Regensburg and Trinity College, Cambridge.

In 1983, Hofmann started working as a freelance writer, translator, and literary critic.{{Citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170227194614/http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=8095 | archive-date = 27 February 2017 | url-status = dead He has since gone on to hold visiting professorships at the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, the New School University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. He was first a visitor to the University of Florida in 1990, joined the faculty in 1994, and became full-time in 2009. He has been teaching poetry and translation workshops.

In 2008, Hofmann was Poet-in-Residence in the state of Queensland in Australia.

Hofmann has two sons, Max (1991) and Jakob (1993). He splits his time between Hamburg and Gainesville, Florida.

Honours

Hofmann received the Cholmondeley Award in 1984 for Nights in the Iron Hotel{{cite web |url-status=usurped |url-status = dead |url-status=usurped

Hofmann was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer, and nominated again in 2003 for his translation of Peter Stephan Jungk's The Snowflake Constant. In 1997 he received the Arts Council Writer's Award for his collection of poems Approximately Nowhere, and the following year he received the International Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums.

In 1999, Hofmann was awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's The String of Pearls. In 2000, Hofmann was selected as the recipient of the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's novel Rebellion (Die Rebellion).{{cite web

Hoffman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.

His translation of Jenny Erpenbeck's novel Kairos won them the International Booker Prize in 2024, the first occasion on which the prize was won by either a German writer or a male translator.

Critical writing

Maria Tumarkin describes Hofmann's review writing as "masterful" and "convention-eviscerating". Philip Oltermann remarks on the "savagery" with which Hofmann "can wield a hatchet", stating (with reference to Hofmann's antipathy towards Stefan Zweig) that: "Like a Soho drunk stumbling into the National Portrait Gallery in search of a good scrap, Hofmann has battered posthumous reputations with the same glee as those of the living."

Selected bibliography

Author

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Translator

• {{Cite book | author-link = Kurt Tucholsky
• {{Cite book | author-link = Wim Wenders
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Wolfgang Koeppen
• {{Cite book | author-link = Joseph Roth
• {{Cite book | author-link = Gert Hofmann
• {{Cite book | author-link = Patrick Süskind
• {{Cite book | author-link =
• {{Cite book | author-link = Franz Kafka
• {{Cite book | author-link = Herta Müller
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Peter Stamm
• {{Cite book | author-link = Peter Stephan Jungk
• Koeppen, Wolfgang (2003. A Sad Affair. Norton.
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Ernst Jünger
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Gert Ledig
• {{Cite book | author-link = Durs Grünbein
• {{Cite book | author-link = Thomas Bernhard
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Fred Wander
• {{Cite book | author-link = Irmgard Keun
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Hans Fallada
• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | author-link = Gottfried Benn

Editor

• {{Citation | editor-last = Hofmann | editor-first = Michael | editor2-last = Lasdun | editor2-first = James
• {{Citation | editor-last = Hofmann | editor-first = Michael
• {{Citation | editor-last = Hofmann | editor-first = Michael
• {{Citation | editor-last = Hofmann | editor-first = Michael

Notes

References

1. Oltermann, Philip. (9 April 2016). "Michael Hofmann: 'English is basically a trap. It's almost a language for spies'".
2. Contemporary Authors, Vol. 160 (1998), p. 165f.
3. "British Council > Literature > Michael Hofmann".
4. Hofmann, Michael. (7 October 1993). "Don't Blub". London Review of Books.
5. "Cambridge Tripos results", ''The Guardian'', 21 June 1979, p. 4.
6. [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-hofmann 'Michael Hofmann. b. 1957']. ''poetryfoundation.org''. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
7. [http://web.english.ufl.edu/faculty/mhofmann/index.html Michael Hofmann] University of Florida, Department of English Faculty. Retrieved 16 January 2018
8. Hofmann, Michael. (2019-11-22). "'The Resident', a new poem by Michael Hofmann".
9. (7 April 2003). "Swedish author wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2003". Arts Council England.
10. (2007). "Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize winners". PEN American Center.
11. Creamer, Ella. (2023-07-12). "Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows". The Guardian.
12. (21 May 2024). "''Kairos'' by Jenny Erpenbeck wins International Booker prize". The Guardian.
13. Tumarkin, Maria. (14 October 2016). "One F (in Hofmann) – and U-C-K the Consequences".