Shirley Kaufman

A prize-winning American-Israeli, Shirley Kaufman was born in Seattle, Washington, and lived in San Francisco until 1973, when she immigrated to Jerusalem. Eight volumes of her poetry have been published in the United States, including Roots in the Air: New & Selected Poems (1996), Threshold (2003), and Ezekiel’s Wheels (2009), all from Copper Canyon Press. Her Selected Poems, translated into Hebrew by Aharon Shabtai, with Dan Pagis and Dan Miron, was published by the Bialik Institute in Jerusalem in 1995. Kaufman has also published several books of translations from the Hebrew, of Abba Kovner and Amir Gilboa, and from the Dutch of Judith Herzberg. Kaufman’s translations of the poems of Meir Wieseltier, The Flower of Anarchy (University of California, 2003), won a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2006, she was awarded the Israel Prize, the country’s highest honor, which was presented at the President’s house by Shimon Peres the following year.