Helen DeWitt


Helen DeWitt is an American novelist. She is the author of the novels The Last Samurai and Lightning Rods and the short story collection Some Trick, and in collaboration with the Australian journalist Ilya Gridneff has written
Your Name Here. She lives in Berlin.

Life

DeWitt grew up primarily in Latin America, as her parents worked in the United States diplomatic service. After a year at Northfield Mount Hermon School and two short periods at Smith College, DeWitt studied classics at the University of Oxford, first at Lady Margaret Hall, and then at Brasenose College for her D.Phil. Afterwards she became a Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College.

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.
In 2005 she collaborated with Ingrid Kerma, the London-based painter, writing "limit5" for the exhibition "Blushing Brides".
In 2012, DeWitt published her second novel, Lightning Rods, with independent High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, publisher And Other Stories to high acclaim.
An excerpt from an in-progress novel set in Flin Flon, Manitoba, has been published by Open Book: Ontario at the end of an article about the novel and DeWitt's difficulties in finding a publisher.
Her short story "Climbers", which explores artistic ideals and commercial realities of the writing life, was published in Harper's magazine November 2014.
Some Trick was shortlisted for the 2019 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.

Novels