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.^[2] Hofmann's family first moved to Bristol in 1961, and later to Edinburgh. He was educated at Winchester College,^[3] and then studied English Literature and Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1979.^[4][5] For the next four years, he pursued postgraduate study at the University of Regensburg and Trinity College, Cambridge.^[2]

In 1983, Hofmann started working as a freelance writer, translator, and literary critic.^[6] 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.^[7]

In 2008, Hofmann was Poet-in-Residence in the state of Queensland in Australia.^[8]

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

Hofmann received the Cholmondeley Award in 1984 for Nights in the Iron Hotel^[9] and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for Acrimony.^[10] The same year, he also received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Patrick Süskind's Der Kontrabaß (The Double Bass).^[11] In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again for his translation of Wolfgang Koeppen's Death in Rome.^[11]

Hofmann was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer,^[2] and 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,^[2] and the following year he received the International Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums.^[2]

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,^[11] 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.^[11] 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]

Hoffman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.^[17]

Maria Tumarkin describes Hofmann's review writing as "masterful" and "convention-eviscerating".^[18] 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."^[1]

Author edit

• Nights in the Iron Hotel. London: Faber and Faber. 1984. ISBN 978-0-571-13116-7.
• Acrimony. London: Faber and Faber. 1986. ISBN 978-0-571-14528-7.
• Corona, Corona. London: Faber and Faber. 1993. ISBN 978-0-571-17052-4.
• Approximately Nowhere: poems. London: Faber and Faber. 1999. ISBN 978-0-571-19524-4.
• Behind the Lines: Pieces on Writing and Pictures. London: Faber and Faber. 2002. ISBN 978-0-571-19523-7.
• Where Have You Been?: Selected Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2014. ISBN 978-0-374-25996-9.
• One Lark, One Horse. London: Faber and Faber. 2018. ISBN 978-0-571-342297.
• Messing About in Boats. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021.

Translator edit

• Tucholsky, Kurt (1985). Castle Gripsholm: A Summer Story. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-2993-4.
• Wenders, Wim (1989). Emotion Pictures: Reflections on the Cinema. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-15272-8.
• Wenders, Wim (1992). The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-16517-9.
• Koeppen, Wolfgang (1992). Death in Rome. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-86207-589-4.
• Roth, Joseph (1995). The String of Pearls. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-86207-087-5.
• Hofmann, Gert (1995). The Film Explainer. Translated by Michael Hofmann. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-1293-3.
• Süskind, Patrick (1997). The Double Bass. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7011-2993-4.
• Süskind, Patrick (13 October 2023). The Story of Mr Sommer. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Fox, Finch & Tepper. ISBN 978-0-99-304672-8.
• Kafka, Franz (1997). The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika). Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-140-18621-5.
• Müller, Herta (1998). The Land of Green Plums. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-86207-260-2.
• Roth, Joseph (1999). Rebellion. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Picador. ISBN 978-0-312-26383-6.
• Koeppen, Wolfgang (2002). The Hothouse. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1862075092.
• Stamm, Peter (2002). Agnes. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-747-54752-5.
• Jungk, Peter Stephan (2002). The Snowflake Constant. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-20182-2.
• Koeppen, Wolfgang (2003. A Sad Affair. Norton.
• Roth, Joseph (2003). Radetzky March. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-86207-605-1.
• Jungk, Peter Stephan (2004). The Perfect American. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Handsel Books. ISBN 978-1-59051-115-2.
• Jünger, Ernst (2004). Storm of Steel. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-243790-2.
• Hofmann, Gert (2004). Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8112-1568-8.
• Ledig, Gert (2004). The Stalin Organ. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-862-07652-5.
• Grünbein, Durs (2006). Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-53013-6.
• Bernhard, Thomas (2006). Frost. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-400-04066-7.
• Stamm, Peter (2006). Unformed Landscape. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Handsel Books. ISBN 978-1-590-51226-5.
• Kafka, Franz (2006). The Zürau Aphorisms. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Schocken. ISBN 978-0-8052-1207-5.
• Stamm, Peter (2008). In Strange Gardens and other stories. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Other Press. ISBN 978-1-590-51169-5.
• Kafka, Franz (2007). Metamorphosis and other stories. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-310524-4.
• Wander, Fred (2007). The Seventh Well. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06538-1.
• Keun, Irmgard (2008). Child of All Nations. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-713-99907-5.
• Stamm, Peter (2008). On a Day Like This. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Other Press. ISBN 978-1-590-51279-1.
• Fallada, Hans (2009). Every Man Dies Alone. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Melville House. ISBN 978-1-933633-63-3.
• Canetti, Elias (2010). Party in the Blitz. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Roth, Joseph (2011). The Leviathan. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Roth, Joseph (2012). Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32379-5.
• Benn, Gottfried (2013). Impromptus: Selected Poems and Some Prose. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-17537-5.
• Roth, Joseph (2013). The Emperor's Tomb. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Roth, Joseph (2015). The Hotel Years. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Kafka, Franz (2017). Investigations of a Dog & Other Creatures. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Döblin, Alfred (2018). Berlin Alexanderplatz. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New York Review Books.
• Kleist, Heinrich von (2020). Michael Kohlhaas. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Koeppen, Wolfgang (2020). Pigeons on the Grass. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Kafka, Franz (2020). The Lost Writings. Translated by Michael Hofmann. New York, NY: New Directions.
• Erpenbeck, Jenny (2023). Kairos. Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-783-78612-1.

Editor edit

• Hofmann, Michael; Lasdun, James, eds. (1994), After Ovid: new metamorphoses, New York, NY: 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, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-10535-8

• 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
• Hofmann's articles for the LRB
• Hofmann's articles for the NYRB