Helen DeWitt

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Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt.jpg
Helen DeWitt
Born
Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S.
OccupationWriter
Period2000–present
Genre Novel
Notable works The Last Samurai
Lightning Rods
Some Trick
Website
helendewitt.com
Voice of Helen DeWitt, 2015

Helen DeWitt is an American novelist. She is the author of the novels The Last Samurai (2000) and Lightning Rods (2011) and the short story collection Some Trick (2018). In 2025, a novel which she co-wrote with Ilya Gridneff and published on her website in 2008, Your Name Here, was republished as a hardcover book.

Contents

Early life and education

Helen DeWitt was born in Takoma Park, Maryland. She grew up primarily in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador in Latin America, [1] as her parents worked in the United States diplomatic service.[ citation needed ]

After a year at Northfield Mount Hermon School and two short periods at Smith College,[ citation needed ] DeWitt studied classics at the University of Oxford, first at Lady Margaret Hall,[ citation needed ] and then at Brasenose College for her D.Phil., where her thesis examined the concept of propriety in ancient literary criticism. [2]

Afterwards she became a junior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. [3]

Work

DeWitt is best known for her debut novel, The Last Samurai . She held a variety of jobs while struggling to finish a book, including dictionary text tagger, copytaker, Dunkin' Donuts employee, legal secretary, and working at a laundry service. During this time she reportedly attempted to finish many novels, before finally completing The Last Samurai, her 50th manuscript, in 1998. [1] [4] It was published in 2000 by Talk Miramax Books.

In 1999, DeWitt had completed another novel, Lightning Rods , and later signed a contract for it with Miramax Books in 2003, but it remained unpublished and in limbo. After Miramax Books was folded into Hyperion Books in late 2007, she asked for the rights to be returned. [5] [6] [7] [8] It was eventually published in 2011 by New Directions.

In 2005 she collaborated with Ingrid Kerma, the London-based painter, writing "limit5" for the exhibition "Blushing Brides".[ citation needed ]

In 2008 she published Your Name Here, which was written in collaboration with the Australian-Canadian journalist Ilya Gridneff, as a PDF on her website [9] [10]

In 2012 an excerpt from an in-progress novel set in Flin Flon, Manitoba, was published online by Open Book: Ontario at the end of an article about the novel and DeWitt's difficulties in finding a publisher. [11]

Her short story "Climbers", which explores artistic ideals and commercial realities of the writing life, was published in Harper's Magazine November 2014. [12]

In 2018, a collection of 13 of her short stories, Some Trick , was published by New Directions. It was shortlisted for the 2019 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. [13]

DeWitt published a novella, The English Understand Wool , in 2022. The novella was published as part of a new series from New Directions Publishing, "Storybook ND", which aims to deliver "the pleasure one felt as a child reading a marvelous book from cover to cover in an afternoon". [14] [15]

In 2025, her 2008 co-written novel (with Ilya Gridneff), Your Name Here, originally published on her website, was published as a hardcover book by Deep Vellum and Dalkey Archive Press. [10]

Bibliography

Novels and novellas

Short story collection

References

  1. 1 2 Macgowan, James (October 15, 2000). "After 50 attempts, Helen DeWitt's brainy prose gets brawny cash advances". The Ottawa Citizen . CanWest Interactive.
  2. ↑ DeWitt, Helen (1987). Quo virtus? The Concept of Propriety in Ancient Literary Criticism (D.Phil.). University of Oxford. Retrieved August 19, 2020.
  3. ↑ Reports of the President and the Treasurer. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 2006.
  4. ↑ The Paris Review (June 7, 2016). "Helen DeWitt: My First Time". The Paris Review. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Novels From the Edge: For Helen DeWitt, the Publishing World Is a High-Stakes Game". Observer. December 21, 2011. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  6. ↑ "an interview with helen dewitt | if:book". December 27, 2008. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  7. ↑ Lorentzen, Christian (July 13, 2016). "When Will Helen DeWitt Be Recognized As One of the Great American Novelists?". Vulture. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  8. ↑ "The Screwer and the Screwed | Lauren Oyler". The Baffler. April 30, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  9. ↑ Turner, Jenny (September 11, 2008). "Move Your Head and the Picture Changes". London Review of Books. Vol. 30, no. 17. ISSN   0260-9592 . Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  10. 1 2 Bergman, Jess (December 16, 2025). "Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff's Sweeping Anti-War Novel". The Nation. Retrieved January 1, 2026.
  11. ↑ Colangelo, Jeremy (June 12, 2012). "Helen DeWitt on Writing, Flin Flon and the Canadian Personality". Open Book Ontario. Archived from the original on February 19, 2014.
  12. ↑ Harper's Magazine , Volume 329, No. 1974.
  13. ↑ "Announcing the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists". PEN America. January 15, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  14. ↑ Arrowsmith, Charles (September 30, 2022). "Review: The author of a literary classic, Helen DeWitt tries a novella on for size". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  15. ↑ Maloney, Iain (July 21, 2022). "Independent publisher gives short stories their due with 'Storybook ND' series". The Japan Times. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
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