Michael hamburger biography

British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Michael Peter Leopold HamburgerOBE (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic.

Michael hamburger biography

He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and W. G. Sebald from German, and his work in literary criticism. The publisher Paul Hamlyn (1926–2001) was his younger brother.

Life and work

Michael Hamburger was born in Berlin into a Jewish family that left for the UK in 1933, and settled in London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and served in the British Army from 1943 to 1947 in Italy and Austria.

Michael hamburger biography wikipedia

After that he completed his degree, and wrote for a time. He took a position at University College London in 1951, and then at the University of Reading in 1955. There followed many further academic positions in the UK and the US.

Hamburger held temporary appointments in German at