Promotional Information

The Sound of One Hand Clapping, which revealed the answers to hundreds of Zen koans, sparked controversy when it was first published in 1975. It is one of the most important documents pertaining to Eastern Religion and is now reappearing after going out of print almost four decades ago.

About the Author

Yoel Hoffmann is an author, editor, scholar, and translator widely regarded as Israel's leading writer of avant-garde fiction. As a young man, Hoffmann spent two years living in a Zen monastery in Japan studying Chinese and Japanese texts. Hoffmann has been awarded The Koret Jewish Book Award, the Bialik Prize, and the Prime Minister's Prize. He is Professor Emeritus of Eastern Studies at the University of Haifa and lives in Galilee. Dror Burstein is a scholar, curator, and writer. He has been awarded the Jerusalem Prize for Literature, and his most recent novel, Sun's Sister, won the Prime Minister's Prize and the Goldberg Prize. He teaches at Tel Aviv University.

Reviews

“The very strain of koan meditation [found in The Sound of the One Hand] is not unlike the self-imposed strain of a creative mathematician, writer, or artist. Such a person deliberately sets himself difficult problems, and deliberately renews them once they have been solved in order to compose or harmonize or solve himself.” —Ben-Ami Scharfstein
 
“For scholars and students of Zen, inquiring readers, or anyone seeking relief from the rhetoric of division in the current political sphere, The Sound of the One Hand offers helpful didacticisms and poetic reflections that are truly timeless.” —Nozomi Saito, Asymptote

“Koans aim for the complete destruction of the rational intellect.” —Carl Jung