author
Nina Hoffmann
1844–1914
A Viennese writer, translator, and philanthropist, she helped introduce Russian and other European literature to German-speaking readers. She is also remembered as an early German-language biographer of Fyodor Dostoevsky and as a figure in Vienna’s literary and social world.
1 Audiobook
Th. M. Dostojewsky: Eine biographische Studie
by Nina Hoffmann
About the author
Born in Vienna in 1844 as Nina (or Marzelline) Matscheko, she later became known as Nina Hoffmann after marrying the painter Josef Hoffmann. After attending a private girls’ school, she pursued foreign languages and literature on her own, which led to translations from Polish, Russian, and French as well as a long writing career.
She published fiction, essays, and journalism, and wrote under the pseudonym Norbert Hoffmann. Several sources describe her as one of the earliest German-language interpreters of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s life and work, and her book on him helped bring his writing to new readers. Alongside her literary work, she was active in social causes and is described in Austrian biographical references as a philanthropist and women’s movement figure.
Hoffmann died in Vienna in 1914. Though not widely known today, she stands out as a lively cultural mediator: a writer who moved between languages, literature, and public life, and who helped connect Viennese readers with the broader European world.