Michael Hofmann

Michael Hofmann (born 25 August 1957 in Freiburg, West Germany) is a German-born poet who writes in English and a translator of texts from German.

Biography[]

Michael Hofmann was born in Freiburg, West Germany into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist Gert Hofmann (died 1993). 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.

In 1979 he received a BA and in 1984 an MA from the University of Cambridge. In 1983 he started working as a freelance writer, translator, and literary critic.^[3] Hofmann has held visiting professorships at the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, the New School University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. He was first a visitor to University of Florida in 1990, joined the faculty in 1994, and became full time in 2009. He has been teaching poetry and translation workshops.^[4]

In 2008, Hofmann was Poet-in-Residence in the state of Queensland in Australia.^{[citation needed]}

He has two sons, Max (1991) and Jakob (1993).^{[citation needed]} He splits his time between Hamburg and Gainesville, Florida.^{[citation needed]}

Honours[]

Hofmann received the Cholmondeley Award in 1984 for Nights in the Iron Hotel^[5] and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for Acrimony.^[6] The same year, he also received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Patrick Süskind's Der Kontrabaß (The Double Bass).^[7] In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again for his translation of Wolfgang Koeppen's Death in Rome.^[7]

Hofmann was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer,^[8] and Michael was nominated again in 2003 for his translation of Peter Stephan Jungk's The Snowflake Constant.^[9] In 1997 he received the Arts Council Writer's Award for his collection of poems Approximately Nowhere,^[8] and the following year he received the International Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums.^[8]

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.^[10] 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).^[11] In 2003 he received another Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of his father's Luck,^[7] and in 2004 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel.^[12] In 2005 Hofmann received his fourth Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Gerd Ledig's The Stalin Organ.^[7] 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.^[13]

Critical Writing[]

Hofmann has a reputation for writing negative review essays. Philip Oltermann remarks on the "savagery" with which Hofmann's "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."^[14]

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

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
• 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
• Kafka, Franz; Hofmann, Michael (2004), Amerika: the man who disappeared, New York: New Directions Publishers, ISBN 978-0-8112-1513-8
• 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[]

External links[]

• Hofmann's faculty page at the University of Florida
• Michael Hofmann at British Council: Literature
• Griffin Poetry Prize biography
• Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip