Michael Hofmann (born 25 August 1957) is a German-born poet, translator, and critic. ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' has described him as "arguably the world's most influential translator of German into English".
Biography
Hofmann was born in
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...
into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist
Gert Hofmann. His maternal grandfather edited the
Brockhaus Enzyklopädie
The ( German for ''Brockhaus Encyclopedia'') is a German-language encyclopedia which until 2009 was published by the F. A. Brockhaus printing house.
The first edition originated in the '' Conversations-Lexikon'' published by Renatus Gotthelf ...
.
Hofmann's family first moved to
Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
in 1961, and later to
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
. He was educated at
Winchester College
Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...
, and then studied
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...
and
Classics
Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
at
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...
, graduating with a BA in 1979. For the next four years, he pursued postgraduate study at the
University of Regensburg
The University of Regensburg () is a public research university located in the city of Regensburg, Germany. The university was founded on 18 July 1962 by the Landtag of Bavaria as the fourth full-fledged university in Bavaria. Following groundbr ...
and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
.
In 1983, Hofmann started working as a
freelance
''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
writer, translator, and
literary critic
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...
.
He has since gone on to hold visiting professorships at the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
,
Rutgers University
Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
, the
New School University
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
,
Barnard College
Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
, and
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. He was first a visitor to the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
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
Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...
.
Honours
Hofmann received the
Cholmondeley Award
The Cholmondeley Awards ( ) are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...
in 1984 for ''Nights in the Iron Hotel'' and the
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for ''Acrimony''. The same year, he also received the
Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of
Patrick Süskind
Patrick Süskind (; born 26 March 1949) is a German writer and screenwriter, known best for his novel '' Perfume: The Story of a Murderer'', first published in 1985.
Early life
Süskind was born in Ambach, Bavaria. His father was writer and jour ...
's ''
Der Kontrabaß'' (''The Double Bass'').
In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again for his translation of
Wolfgang Koeppen's ''Death in Rome''.
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
The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...
for his translation of
Herta Müller
Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf (; ), Timiș County in Romania; her native languages are German and Romanian. Si ...
'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''). In 2003 he received another Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of his father's ''Luck'',
and in 2004 he was awarded the
Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomology, entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir ''Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful busin ...
's ''
Storm of Steel''. In 2005 Hofmann received his fourth Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Gerd Ledig's ''The Stalin Organ''.
Hofmann served as a judge for the
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...
in 2002, and in 2006 Hofmann made the Griffin's international shortlist for his translation of
Durs Grünbein's ''Ashes for Breakfast.
Hoffman was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...
in 2023.
His translation of
Jenny Erpenbeck's novel ''
Kairos
''Kairos'' () is an ancient Greek language, Greek word meaning 'the right or critical moment'. In modern Greek, ''kairos'' also means 'weather' or 'time'.
It is one of two words that the ancient Greeks had for 'time'; the other being (). ...
'' 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
Philip Oltermann (born 1981) is a German-born British journalist and the current chief of ''The Guardian''s Berlin bureau. He is the author of ''How to Write'' (2012), ''Keeping Up with the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters'' (2012), an ...
remarks on the "savagery" with which Hofmann "can wield a hatchet", stating (with reference to Hofmann's antipathy towards
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world.
Zweig was raised in V ...
) 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
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* Koeppen, Wolfgang (2003. ''A Sad Affair''. Norton.
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Editor
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Notes
External links
Hofmann's faculty page at the University of Florida*
Griffin Poetry Prize biographyGriffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clipHofmann's articles for the LRBHofmann's articles for the NYRB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hofmann, Michael
1957 births
German–English translators
Living people
Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge
University of Florida faculty
German-language poets
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature