PETER COLE

Translation

The Dream of the Poem:
Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492
Princeton University Press, 2007
2010 TLS Translation Prize
2007 R. R. Hawkins Award, Association of American Publishers Book of the Year
2007 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry

“A brilliant and original body of Hebrew verse…. In Peter Cole’s rich new anthology, the extent of [this] astonishing achievement is fully revealed for the first time in English…. His versions are masterly.”
— Eric Ormsby, The New York Times Book Review

“Peter Cole’s work is an entire revelation: a body of lyric and didactic verse so intense, so intelligent, and so vivid that it appears to identify a whole dimension of historical consciousness previously unavailable to us. His work represents the finest labor of poetic translation that I have seen for many years…. The Dream of the Poem is a crowning achievement.”
— Richard Howard

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The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition
Translated and Annotated by Peter Cole
Yale University Press, April 2012
Co-edited and with an afterword by Aminadav Dykman

John Frederick Nims Prize from Poetry magazine 

Honorable Mention from: 2012 New York Book Festival (Poetry)                 

2012 New England Book Festival (Poetry)                                       

2012 Association of American Publishers PROSE Awards (Literature)       

2013 Lois Roth Award (MLA, Translation)

 

“Peter Cole brings his unparalleled, remarkable gifts as a translator and scholar of Hebrew poetry to the world of Jewish mystical literature. In this groundbreaking, panoramic view of Jewish mystical poetics, Cole offers fresh, often stunning translations that will delight both scholars and general readers alike. Studded with insight, and written with great verve, this book will become a classic.”
— Lawrence Fine, Mt. Holyoke College

“Resplendent … a dazzling treasury of verse spanning more than 1,500 years and accompanied by fascinating, illuminating commentary rich in history, biography, and literary expertise…. Cole has brilliantly preserved [the poems’] “diverse prosodies” and ecstatic lyricism in his supple translations, allowing readers to fully appreciate how they grapple with ‘timeless concerns’.”
— Booklist

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J’accuse
Aharon Shabtai
New Directions, 2003
2004 PEN Translation Prize for Poetry

“In his fusions of the sensual and the spiritual, the ordinary and the exalted, the sexual in the suffering psyche and the intelligent consciousness searching and spinning through history, myth and layers of language, Shabtai is one of the most exciting poets writing anywhere, and certainly the most audacious. The poems have a wonderful almost vertiginous energy, an enormous erudition, and a startling, finally inspiring candor. Brilliantly translated by Peter Cole.”
— C.K. Williams

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So What: New & Selected Poems,
1971-2005
Taha Muhammad Ali
Copper Canyon Press, 2006
Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin

“Some of the finest translations of modern Arabic verse that I have ever read.”
— Robyn Creswell, The National

“A wise, smart, canny, superbly gifted and totally original poet.”
— Gerald Stern

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War & Love, Love & War: New and Selected Poems
Aharon Shabtai
New Directions, 2010

“Cole does a remarkable job bringing lightness and immediacy to Shabtai’s quotidian observations and depth to his spiritual delvings, making [War & Love, Love & War] an excellent introduction to a vast and varied oeuvre.”
— Publishers Weekly

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Hebrew Writers on Writing
Edited by Peter Cole
Trinity University Press, 2008
“Exciting…. An invaluable anthology, by turn delightful, surprising and thought-provoking…. Cole’s contribution is three–fold: first in his selections, second in his deft translations… and lastly in the biographical and critical headnotes, each a marvel of compression and insight.”
— The Jerusalem Report

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Moods
Yoel Hoffmann
New Directions (June 2015)
Best Translated Book of the Year,  Fiction Finalist 2016  (Three Percent)           

“It’s a miracle of Peter Cole’s sinuous, sensitive English translation of Moods that Hoffmann seems even more ‘himself’: a magus, a sphinx, the Kohen of the koan, the Grand Rabbi of Kyoto—a genius.”
— Joshua Cohen  

Moods should be named the best fiction, best poetry, best machine, and best spiritual possession of the year…. Peter Cole’s translation is exquisite.”                                                                                                    —Kate Garber, Judge, Best Translated Book of the Year Award, Bookseller 192 Books

“Beautifully composed … luminously translated.”                                                                                                                    —Three Percent

“Part novel and part memoir, … translated into beautiful, powerful prose by Peter Cole.”
—Vanity Fair  

“Its gentle humour, searing pain and unmistakable humanity ennoble the literature of life and the life in literature. Here, memory is fecund, messy, fictive and, finally, radiantly authentic. Translated with grace and humour.”
Review 31 (UK)  

“Perhaps Hoffmann’s most Hoffmann-esque book yet…. Its prose, translated … by the American poet Peter Cole, is sensuous and fresh. One sits comfortably in it, as in summer morning air. The world opens in scenes both gestural and exact, bursting at times into magical-realistic bloom…. Moments expand and dissolve, crystallize and turn, revealing particularities even as they melt into mood….[Hoffmann] writes prayerfully … as though he were giving thanks not just for the moment as he experienced it first, but also for the words he finds now to express it and for the act of expression itself. His reminder of what is occurring meanwhile is an attempt to honor those things as well…. Hoffmann’s subject is the miracle of this most ordinary thing, and his prose is its revelation and praise.”
— Jenny Hendrix, The Forward  

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Other translations …