The Heart is Katmandu

by Yoel Hoffmann, Peter Cole (Translator)

The Heart Is Katmandu tells a tale of new love―of paradise gained. Set in today's Haifa and presented in 237 dream-like small chapters, it is a book in which shyness and stumbling tenderness emerge triumphant. Poet Peter Cole has made a beautiful translation, capturing Hoffmann's intense and unfathomably original style. A starred Kirkus Review acclaimed the novel "Beautiful, humane, priceless."

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Yoel Hoffmann (23 June 1937– 25 August 2023) was an Israeli Jewish contemporary author, editor, scholar and translator.

Reviews

[Carrie Lorig · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The colors of Thankgod." hoffman is a hot day that blurs you. hoffman is the kind of yogurt that is smoke. i love the repetition, the address to the sky, how it reminds me of Antwerp by Bolano, the impairment, the pear mint. No one will believe me, but I have lived how love works in this book.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes when I read a book and come upon a phrase or sentence I like, I'll bend the corner of the page, to return to in the future. If I did that with this book, my whole life would be a bent corner.

[thelittlestpickle]

DNF @ 44%

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cross genre and experimental books, if written well, have a way of becoming maps of the psyche. Hoffmann does just that in this novel, if you can even call it a novel. It is, more aptly, long form poetic prose, a fluid diffusion of ideas about God, love, intelligence, and awareness curled together in a book whose simple yet startling prose often demands that its reader stop and absorb the full gravity of what was said.

[Douglas Messerli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here's my review of Hoffmann's The Heart Is Katmandu:
http://greeninteger.blogspot.com/2009...

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

god.