Benjamin Balint

Benjamin Balint (born 1976) is an American-Israeli author, journalist, educator, and translator.  His 2018 book Kafka's Last Trial, which explores the literary legacy of Franz Kafka,^[1] won the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.^[2]

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.

Balint's 2018 book Kafka’s Last Trial narrates the journey of Kafka's manuscripts from Czechoslovakia to Israel's National Library.^[1][5] 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

Balint was a fellow at the Hudson Institute^[3][2] and Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.^[2]

Balint lives in Jerusalem.^[8]

• 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.
• 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.