Michael Hofmann

Michael Hofmann studied at University of Cambridge, Winchester College and University of Oxford. The recorded working language is German and English. Employment is recorded with University of Florida. Distinctions recorded are Cholmondeley Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

• Name — Michael Hofmann • Born — 25 August 1957 • Birthplace — Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany • Occupation — Poet, translator • Genre — Criticism, poetry, translation • Honorific Suffix — FRSL • Relatives — Gert Hofmann (father), Eva (Thomas) Hofmann (mother) • Education — University of Cambridge

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. 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.

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."

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * • Koeppen, Wolfgang (2003. A Sad Affair. Norton. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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