Helen DeWitt

Helen DeWitt (born 1957 in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.) is a novelist.

DeWitt grew up primarily in South America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador), 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.

DeWitt is best known for her acclaimed debut novel, The Last Samurai. She held a variety of jobs while struggling to finish a book, including a dictionary text tagger, a copytaker, and Dunkin’ Donuts employee, she also worked in a laundry service. During this time, she reportedly attempted to finish many novels, before finally completing The Last Samurai, her 50th manuscript, in 1998.

Books in order of publication:

Novels and novellas

• The Last Samurai (Talk Miramax Books/Chatto & Windus, 2000.
• Your Name Here (co-written with Ilya Gridneff). Was available for purchase as a PDF from DeWitt’s website at one time but remains otherwise unpublished.
• Lightning Rods (New Directions, 2011; And Other Stories, 2012.
• The English Understand Wool (New Directions, 2022)

Short stories

• Some Trick: Thirteen Stories (New York: New Directions, 2018;