Benjamin Balint
Canadian writer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benjamin Balint (born 1976) is an American-Israeli author, journalist, educator, and translator. His 2018 book Kafka's Last Trial, which explores the fate of Franz Kafka's manuscripts, which Max Brod declined to follow Kafka's instructions to burn,[1] won the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.[2]
Benjamin Balint | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1976 (age 49–50) |
| Occupation | Author, journalist, educator, and translator |
| Nationality | American-Israeli |
| Notable awards | Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (2020) |
Writing career
Balint was assistant editor for Commentary magazine.[3] He contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal, Die Zeit, Haaretz,[4] The Weekly Standard, and the Claremont Review of Books. A documentary film directed by Eliran Peled, titled Kafka's Last Trial and based on the book, was released in 2025, with Balint one of the speakers who appears in it.[5]
Balint's 2018 book Kafka's Last Trial narrates the journey of Kafka's manuscripts from Czechoslovakia to the National Library of Israel.[1][6] For this work, Balint was awarded the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.[2] The book was also a finalist for the 2020 Wingate Literary Prize.[7]
Balint's 2023 book, Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History, won the National Jewish Book Award in the Biography category.[8]
Balint was a fellow at the Hudson Institute[3][2] and Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.[2]
Personal life
Bibliography
- Balint, Benjamin (2010). Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1586487492.
- Balint, Benjamin (2018). Kafka's Last Trial: The Strange Case of a Literary Legacy. New York: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9781324001317. Also published by W. W. Norton & Company as Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy.
- Mack, Merav; Balint, Benjamin (May 14, 2019). Jerusalem: City of the Book. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300222852.
- Balint, Benjamin (2023). Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393866575.