J.M. Cohen

I never met Jack Cohen, but we corresponded for the last three years of his life. Despite his blindness, his interest in contemporary poetry - English and translated - never flagged. His family read poetry, criticism and fiction on tape for him. His letters are anthologies of just and generous comment - encyclopaedically informed, he was an inestimably valuable editorial resource, and - as I found after only a few letters - a fast friend. Not only literature but its context concerned him. He was passionately opposed to Clause 28: "The new campaign against gay writing is a menace to all, including heterosexual grandfathers like myself." He was distressed by the cultural and political direction of Britain in the 1980s, chiding me for my own Conservatism. "As a Buddhist," he wrote, "I would support any programme based on a caring attitude. So my sympathies are broadly on the Left."

I first knowingly encountered his name on a tiny book of Pasternak translations, so insignificant in the vast tide of his output as to go unmentioned in his bibliography. Clearly a labour of love, it is the one version of the work which makes the Russian poet's reputation intelligible to an English reader. His version of 'The English Lesson' is perfect.

But I had known his work before, without putting a name to it - something young readers tend to do with translations and anthologies. His Don Quixote is the best since Smollett's; his version of Rousseau's Confessions ...