Jessica Cohen


Jessica Cohen is a British-Israeli-American translator. She shared the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for translating David Grossman's 2014 novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar.

Biography

Cohen was born in Colchester, England to Stanley Cohen and Ruth Kretzmer in 1973. She moved with her family to Israel at the age of seven and went on to study English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After moving to the United States with her husband in 1997, she studied Middle Eastern literature and languages at Indiana University.
Cohen has translated a number of Hebrew language books into English, including those by Nir Baram, David Grossman,,, Ronit Matalon, Rutu Modan, Dorit Rabinyan, Tom Segev and Nava Semel. She currently resides in Denver, Colorado.
Following her joint success in the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, Cohen planned to donate half of her winnings to B’Tselem.

Translations