Yoel Hoffmann (; 23 June 1937 – 25 August 2023) was an Israeli Jewish contemporary author, editor, scholar and translator. Held a title of a professor of

Japanese poetry Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, and philosophy at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...

in Israel and lived in

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

Biography

Born in Braşov, Romania to Jewish parents of

Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

culture, at the age of one Hoffmann and his parents fled a Europe increasingly under

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

influence for the British Mandate of Palestine. Shortly after the move, Hoffmann's mother died and he was entrusted by his father to an orphanage where he spent his time until his father remarried. As a young man, Hoffmann left his home in Israel and traveled to Japan, where he spent two years living in a

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

monastery and studying

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

and Japanese texts with monks. He would later return to Japan to earn his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

. Hoffmann did not begin writing fiction until in his forties, and though chronologically a member of the sixties "Generation of the State," his work is oft-described as being on the forefront of

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

Hebrew literature Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews, mostly among the Arab cit ...

, with an influence of his Japanese studies discernible in his works. Hoffmann's first book of fiction, ''Kätzchen - The Book of Joseph'', was published in Hebrew in 1988. He went on to write ten more books in Hebrew, seven of which have been translated into English and published by New Directions; these include ''Katschen and The Book of Joseph'' (1998), ''Bernhard'' (1998), ''The Christ of Fish'' (1999), ''The Heart is Katmandu'' (2001), ''The Shunra and the Schmetterling'' (2004), ''Curriculum Vitae'' (2009), and ''Moods'' (2015). Hoffmann was awarded the inaugural

Koret Jewish Book Award The Koret Jewish Book Award is an annual award that recognizes "recently published books on any aspect of Jewish life in the categories of biography/autobiography and literary studies, fiction, history and philosophy/thought published in, or transla ...

, as well as the

Bialik Prize The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel, for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Israel's national poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate p ...

by the city of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

and the Prime Minister's Prize. The rights to Hoffmann's latest book, ''Moods'', were sold to Galaade publishing company in France and to Keter Books in Israel in 2010. Yoel Hoffmann died on 25 August 2023, at the age of 86.הלך לעולמו הסופר והמשורר יואל הופמן

Selected bibliography

Writings by the author

*''Katschen and The Book of Joseph'', trans. from Hebrew by Eddie Levenston, David Kriss, and Alan Treister, New Directions (New York, NY) 1998. *''Bernhard'', trans. from Hebrew by Alan Treister & Eddie Levenston, New Directions (New York, NY), 1998. *''The Christ of Fish'', trans. from Hebrew by Eddie Levenston, New Directions (New York, NY), 1999. *''The Heart is Katmandu'', trans. from Hebrew by

Peter Cole Peter Cole (born 1957) is a MacArthur-winning poet and translator who lives in Jerusalem and New Haven. Cole was born in 1957 in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended Williams College and Hampshire College, and moved to Jerusalem in 1981. He has been ...

, New Directions (New York, NY), 2001. *''The Shunra and the Schmetterling'', trans. from Hebrew by Peter Cole, New Directions (New York, NY), 2004. *''Curriculum Vitae'', trans. from Hebrew by Peter Cole, New Directions (New York, NY), 2009. *''Moods'', trans. from Hebrew by Peter Cole, New Directions (New York, NY), 2015.

Editor and translator

*''Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death'', Tuttle Publishing, 1986. *''The Sound of the One Hand: 281 Zen Koans with Answers'', Basic Books, 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffmann, Yoel 1937 births 2023 deaths Jewish scholars Academic staff of the University of Haifa Israeli people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Romanian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Romanian emigrants to Israel Hungarian emigrants to Israel Jewish Israeli writers Jews from Austria-Hungary Romanian people of Austrian descent Jewish Hungarian writers Israeli Japanologists

Biography

Selected bibliography

Writings by the author

Editor and translator

Further reading

References