Peter (TRN) Cole

An entirely new direction in the work of "Israel's celebrated avant-garde genius" (Forward): Yoel Hoffmann now turns to the subject of love. Hoffmann—Israel's most highly acclaimed avant-garde novelist (a "genius" in the words of Kirkus Reviews)—has in his new novel launched off into fresh territories. His hero, whose wife has left him, floats aimlessly about Haifa. One day he meets Batya, and a raw, awkward love is born. The Heart Is Katmandu is a book in which shyness and stumbling tenderness emerge triumphant: a tale of paradise gained. Published to enormous acclaim in Israel this year ("In this book Yoel Hoffmann flies more beautifully than any other Israeli author I know," Ma'arive Magazine), The Heart Is Katmandu takes a very surprising leap away from the wrenching sadness of the Holocaust which informed the agonizing beauty of Bernhard as well as of Katschen & The Book of Joseph. No one writes like Yoel Hoffmann, and the special delight of The Heart Is Katmandu (stunningly translated by Peter Cole) lies in his majestic shift of registers from tragedy to real happiness, and within this new register his unchanging lyrical intensity and unfathomable originality.Author Biography: Yoel Hoffmann is Professor of Eastern Philosophy at the University of Haifa, and has had a lifelong scholarly engagement with Hebrew literature, Western philosophy, and Japanese Buddhism. Critically acclaimed in Israel, as well as in Germany and France, he has published several fiction books, including Bernhardt, Katschen & The Book of Joseph, and The Christ of Fish, available from New Directions.