Literatureג'סיקה כהן

Jessica Cohen

Jessica Cohen is a literary translator of Hebrew books into English who won the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of David Grossman's A Horse Walks Into a Bar.

born 1973Translating David Grossman into EnglishThe 2017 Man Booker International PrizeTranslating Hebrew literature into English

Occupation: translator
Education: Gymnasia Rehavia, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Indiana University Bloomington

Jessica Cohen was born in 1973 in Colchester

Jessica Cohen was born in 1973 in Colchester, England, to Stanley Cohen and Ruth Kretzmer. Her father was a professor of sociology. In 1980 the family moved to Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem she attended the Hebrew Gymnasium Rehavia high school and studied English literature at the Hebrew University. In 1997 she moved to the United States with her husband. She earned a master's degree in Near Eastern languages and translation at Indiana University Bloomington.

She began translating commercial texts professionally in 1998, and her first book translation came out in 2003. Since 2012 she has worked only on literary translation. She has translated books by David Grossman, Etgar Keret, Amos Oz, Dorit Rabinyan, Nir Baram and others.

Her translations of Grossman were longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2006 and 2011. At the 2017 Man Booker International ceremony she said she would give half of her share of the prize to B'Tselem. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021 and lives in Denver, Colorado.