Eva Hoffman

Eva Hoffman is an American-Polish writer and academic. She is the author of the bestselling memoir Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language and other non-fiction works and novels.

She was born Ewa Wydra and grew up in Cracow, Poland. Her Jewish parents survived the Holocaust by hiding in the Ukraine. During the Cold War, her parents immigrated to Canada and then the United States, where she changed her name to Eva.

Upon graduating high school, she received a scholarship and studied English literature at Rice University and the Yale School of Music.

After receiving her Ph.D. in literature from Harvard University, she worked as senior editor and literary critic at The New York Times and has taught at various British and American universities.

Her books, which have been translated widely, include Lost in Translation (1989), Exit Into History (1993), After Such Knowledge and Time (2004), as well as two novels, The Secret (2002) and Illuminations (2009).

Her best-known work, Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, explores Eva Hoffman's experiences as a young girl who emigrated from Poland to Canada and later to the United States. It reflects on her struggles with adapting to a new language and culture, her journey of self-discovery, and identity formation.

Eva Hoffman has written and presented numerous programs for BBC Radio. She has lectured internationally on exile, historical memory, cross-cultural relations, political transitions, and other contemporary issues.

Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Award for Writing, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Prix Italia for Radio.

Hoffman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds an honorary doctorate from Warwick University.

Eva Hoffman now lives in London.

Photo credit: www.ucl.ac.uk