Michael Hofmann
Michael Hofmann (born 25 August 1957) is a German-born poet who writes in English and is a translator of texts from German.
Michael Hofmann | |
|---|---|
| Born | 25 August 1957 Freiburg, Germany |
| Occupation | Poet, translator |
| Genre | Criticism, poetry, translation |
Biography
Hofmann was born in Freiburg into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist Gert Hofmann. His maternal grandfather edited the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie.[1] Hofmann's family first moved to Bristol in 1961, and later to Edinburgh. He was educated at Winchester College,[2] and then studied English Literature and Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1979.[3][4]
In 1983, Hofmann started working as a freelance writer, translator, and literary critic.[5] 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.[6]
In 2008, Hofmann was Poet-in-Residence in the state of Queensland in Australia.[7]
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[8] and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for Acrimony.[9] The same year, he also received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Patrick Süskind's Der Kontrabaß (The Double Bass).[10] In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again for his translation of Wolfgang Koeppen's Death in Rome.[10]
Hofmann was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer,[11] and Michael was nominated again in 2003 for his translation of Peter Stephan Jungk's The Snowflake Constant.[12] In 1997 he received the Arts Council Writer's Award for his collection of poems Approximately Nowhere,[11] and the following year he received the International Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums.[11]
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.[13] 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).[14] In 2003 he received another Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of his father's Luck,[10] and in 2004 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel.[15] In 2005 Hofmann received his fourth Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Gerd Ledig's The Stalin Organ.[10] Hofmann served as a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2002, and in 2006 Hofmann made the Griffin's international shortlist for his translation of Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast.[16]
Critical Writing
Hofmann has a reputation for writing negative review essays. Philip Oltermann remarks on the "savagery" with which Hofmann "can wield a hatchet", stating (with reference to Hofmann's dislike for 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."[17]
Selected bibliography
Author
- Hofmann, Michael (1984), Nights in the iron hotel, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-13116-7
- Hofmann, Michael (1986), Acrimony, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-14528-7
- Hofmann, Michael (1993), Corona, Corona, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-17052-4
- Hofmann, Michael (1999), Approximately nowhere: poems, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-19524-4
- Hofmann, Michael (2002), Behind the lines: pieces on writing and pictures, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-19523-7
- Hofmann, Michael (2014), Where Have You Been?: Selected Essays, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-25996-9
- Hofmann, Michael (2018), One Lark, One Horse, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-342297
- Messing About in Boats (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Articles
- Hofmann, Michael, "Heine's Heartmobile" (review of George Prochnik, Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution, Yale University Press, 2020, 312 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVIII, no. 12 (22 July 2021), pp. 42–44.
Translator
- Tucholsky, Kurt; Hofmann, Michael (1985), Castle Gripsholm: a summer story, London: Chatto and Windus, ISBN 978-0-7011-2993-4
- Wenders, Wim; Hofmann, Michael (1989), Emotion pictures: reflections on the cinema, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-15272-8
- Wenders, Wim; Hofmann, Michael (1992), The logic of images: essays and conversations, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-16517-9
- Koeppen, Wolfgang; Hofmann, Michael (1992), "Death in Rome", Granta, London, ISBN 978-1-86207-589-4
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (1995), "The string of pearls", Granta, London, ISBN 978-1-86207-087-5
- Hofmann, Gert; Hofmann, Michael (1995), The film explainer, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, ISBN 978-0-8101-1293-3
- Süskind, Patrick; Hofmann, Michael (1997), The Double Bass, London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-0-7011-2993-4
- Süskind, Patrick; Hofmann, Michael, The Story of Mr Sommer, London: Fox, Finch & Tepper, ISBN 978-0-99-304672-8
- Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (1997), The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika), Penguin, ISBN 9780140186215
- Müller, Herta; Hofmann, Michael (1998), "The Land of Green Plums", Granta, London, ISBN 978-1-86207-260-2
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (1999), Rebellion, London: Picador, ISBN 978-0-312-26383-6
- Koeppen, Wolfgang; Hofmann, Michael (2002), The Hothouse, London: Granta Books, ISBN 978-1862075092
- Stamm, Peter; Hofmann, Michael (2002), Agnes, London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-0-7475-4752-5
- Jungk, Peter Stephan; Hofmann, Michael (2002), The snowflake constant, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-20182-2
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (2003), "Radetzky march", Granta, London, ISBN 978-1-86207-605-1
- Jungk, Peter Stephan; Hofmann, Michael (2004), The perfect American, New York: Handsel Books, ISBN 978-1-59051-115-2
- Jünger, Ernst; Hofmann, Michael (2004), Storm of steel, London: Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0-14-243790-2
- Hofmann, Gert; Hofmann, Michael (2004), Lichtenberg and the little flower girl, New York: New Directions Publishers, ISBN 978-0-8112-1568-8
- Ledig, Gert; Hofmann, Michael (2004), "The stalin organ", Granta, London, ISBN 978-1-86207-652-5
- Grünbein, Durs; Hofmann, Michael (2006), Ashes for breakfast: selected poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-53013-6
- Bernhard, Thomas; Hofmann, Michael (2006), Frost, New York: Knopf, ISBN 978-1-4000-4066-7
- Stamm, Peter; Hofmann, Michael (2006), Unformed landscape, New York: Handsel Books, ISBN 978-1-59051-226-5
- Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (2006), The Zürau aphorisms, New York: Schocken, ISBN 978-0-8052-1207-5
- Stamm, Peter; Hofmann, Michael (2008), In strange gardens and other stories, New York: Other Press, ISBN 978-1-59051-169-5
- Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (2007), Metamorphosis and other stories, New York: Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0-14-310524-4
- Wander, Fred; Hofmann, Michael (2007), The seventh well, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-06538-1
- Keun, Irmgard; Hofmann, Michael (2008), Child of all nations, London: Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0-7139-9907-5
- Stamm, Peter; Hofmann, Michael (2008), On a day like this, New York: Other Press, ISBN 978-1-59051-279-1
- Fallada, Hans; Hofmann, Michael (2009), Every Man Dies Alone, New York: Melville House, ISBN 978-1-933633-63-3
- Canetti, Elias; Hofmann, Michael (2010), Party in the Blitz, New Directions
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (2011), The Leviathan, New Directions
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (2012), Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-32379-5
- Benn, Gottfried (2013), Hofmann, Michael (ed.), Impromptus: Selected Poems and Some Prose, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 9780374175375
- Roth, Joseph; Hofmann, Michael (2013), The Emperor's Tomb, New Directions
- Roth, Joseph, Hofmann, Michael (2015), The Hotel Years, New Directions
- Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (2017), Investigations of a Dog & Other Creatures, New Directions
- Döblin, Alfred; Hofmann, Michael (2018), Berlin Alexanderplatz, New York Review Books
- Kleist, Heinrich von; Hofmann, Michael (2020), Michael Kohlhaas, New Directions
- Koeppen, Wolfgang; Hofmann, Michael (2020), Pigeons on the Grass, New Directions
- Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (2020), The Lost Writings, New Directions
Editor
- Hofmann, Michael; Lasdun, James, eds. (1994), After Ovid: new metamorphoses, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-52478-4
- Hofmann, Michael, ed. (2001), Robert Lowell, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-23040-2
- Hofmann, Michael, ed. (2005), The Faber book of 20th century German poems, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-19703-3
- Hofmann, Michael, ed. (2006), Twentieth-century German poetry: an anthology, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-10535-8
Notes
- Michael Hofmann. Author Statement British Council, 2008
- Hofmann, Michael (7 October 1993). "Don't Blub". London Review of Books. 15 (19): 18–19.
- 'Cambridge Tripos results', The Guardian, 21 June 1979, p. 4.
- 'Michael Hofmann. b. 1957'. poetryfoundation.org. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
- Brearton, Fran (1999), "An interview with Michael Hofmann: Where is our home key anyway?", Thumbscrew (3): 30–46, ISSN 1369-5371, archived from the original on 27 February 2017, retrieved 27 June 2007.
- Michael Hofmann University of Florida, Department of English Faculty. Retrieved 16 January 2018
- Hofmann, Michael (22 November 2019). "'The Resident', a new poem by Michael Hofmann". Australian Book Review. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- "Cholmondely Award for Poets (past winners)". The Society of Authors. 2007. Archived from the original on 10 February 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
- Merrit, Moseley (2007). "The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize". Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
- "Schlegel-Tieck Prize (past winners)". The Society of Authors. 2007. Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
- "Michael Hofmann". British Council Literature. British Council. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
- "Swedish author wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2003". Arts Council England. 7 April 2003. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 2 July 2007.
- "Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize winners". PEN American Center. 2007. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2007.
- "Michael Hofmann recipient of the 2000 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize". Goethe Institute. 2000. Retrieved 28 June 2007.
- "The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize (previous winners)". St. Anne's College. 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
- "The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry: Shortlist 2006 – Michael Hofmann". The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. 2007. Archived from the original on 1 July 2007. Retrieved 25 July 2007.
- "English is basically a trap". 9 April 2016.