Gabriel Rosenstock
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Gabriel Rosenstock | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rosenstock in 2019 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 29 September 1949 Kilfinane, County Limerick, Ireland |
| Died | 6 April 2026 (aged 76) Monkstown, Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation | Writer |
Gabriel Rosenstock (29 September 1949 – 6 April 2026) was an Irish writer who worked chiefly in the Irish language. A member of Aosdána, he was a poet, playwright, haikuist, tankaist, essayist, and author/translator of over 180 books, mostly in Irish.
Born in Kilfinane, County Limerick, he resided in Dublin. Rosenstock's father George was a doctor and writer from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, who served as a medical officer with the Wehrmacht in World War II. His mother was a nurse from County Galway. Gabriel was the third of six children and the first born in Ireland. He was educated locally in Kilfinane, then in Mount Sackville, County Dublin. He exhibited an early interest in anarchism and was expelled from Gormanston College (County Meath) and sent to Rockwell College (County Tipperary). Later, he attended University College Cork.[1][2]
He had four children, one of whom predeceased him.[3] His son, Tristan, is a member of the Irish traditional music quintet Téada, and impressionist/actor Mario Rosenstock is his nephew. Rosenstock died from cancer on 6 April 2026, at the age of 76.[4][5]
Work
Rosenstock worked for some time on the television series Anois is Arís on RTÉ, then on the weekly newspaper Anois. Until his retirement he worked with An Gúm, the publications branch of Foras na Gaeilge, the North-South body which promotes the Irish language. Although he worked in prose, drama and translation, Rosenstock is primarily known as a poet. He wrote or translated over 180 books.
He edited and contributed to books of haiku in Irish, English, Scots and Japanese. He was a prolific translator into Irish of international poetry (among others Ko Un, Seamus Heaney, K. Satchidanandan, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, Hilde Domin, Peter Huchel), plays (Samuel Beckett, Max Frisch, W. B. Yeats) and songs (Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, The Pogues, Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell). He also has singable Irish translations of Lieder and other art songs.
He appears in the anthology Best European Fiction 2012, edited by Aleksandar Hemon, with a preface by Nicole Krauss (Dalkey Archive Press).[6] He gave the keynote address to Haiku Canada in 2015.
His appointment as Lineage Holder of Celtic Buddhism led to his most recent haiku collections: Antlered Stag of Dawn (Onslaught Press, Oxford, 2015), which features haiku in Irish and English, with translations into Japanese and Scots Lallans. He also wrote for children, in prose and verse. Haiku Más É Do Thoil É! (An Gúm) won the Children's Books Judges' Special Prize in 2015.
Awards and honours
- Member of Aosdána (Irish academy of arts & letters)
- Laoch Lorcáin 2024
- Lineage Holder of Celtic Buddhism
- Former Chairman Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann
- Corresponding Member Hellenic Authors' Society
- Member of the Board of Advisors to Poetry India
- Tamgha-I-Khidmat medal (Pakistan) for services to literature.
- Honorary Life Member Irish Translators and Interpreters Association
- He taught haiku at the Schule für Dichtung (Poetry Academy), Vienna, and at the Hyderabad Literary Festival.
- 2023 recipient of the Annual Children's Books Ireland Award for his outstanding contribution to children's books.
