Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language

The late poet and memoirist Czeslaw Milosz wrote, "I am enchanted. This book is graceful and profound." Since its publication in 1989, many other readers across the world have been enchanted by *Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language*, a classic of exile and immigrant literature, as well as a girl’s coming-of-age memoir. The narrative moves from Hoffman's childhood in Cracow, Poland to her adolescence in Vancouver, British Columbia, to her university years in Texas and Massachusetts, and finally to New York City, where she becomes a writer and an editor at the New York Times Book Review. Its multi-layered narrative encompasses many themes: the defining power of language; the costs and benefits of changing cultures, the construction of personal identity, and the profound consequences, for a generation of post-war Jews like Hoffman, of Nazism and Communism. *Lost in Translation* is described as “a penetrating, lyrical memoir that casts a wide net,” challenging readers to reconsider their own language, autobiography, cultures, and childhoods.