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Helen DeWitt

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Helen DeWitt
DeWitt in 2013
Born1957 (age 68–69)
Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S.
OccupationWriter
Writing career
Period2000–present
GenreNovel
Websitehelendewitt.com
Voice of Helen DeWitt, 2015

Helen DeWitt (born 1957) 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 commercial book.

Early life and education

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Helen DeWitt was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, in 1957.[1] She grew up primarily in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador in Latin America,[2] as her father worked in the United States Foreign Service.[1]

After a year at Northfield Mount Hermon School[citation needed] and two short periods at Smith College,[3] 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.[4]

Afterwards she became a junior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.[5] She spent nine years at Oxford before deciding to leave academia and focus on a career in writing.[6][1]

Career

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DeWitt's first novel, The Last Samurai, was published in 2000 by Talk Miramax Books.[1] She had held a variety of jobs while struggling to finish several books, including dictionary text tagger, copytaker, Dunkin' Donuts employee, legal secretary, and working at a laundry service. She completed The Last Samurai, said to be her 50th manuscript, in 1998.[2][1][7] The novel became a cult classic; it sold over 100,000 copies and was translated into ten languages.[3]

In 1999, DeWitt completed another novel, Lightning Rods, and later signed a contract for it with Miramax Books in 2003, but it remained unpublished and in limbo.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.[8][9][6][10] It was eventually published in 2011 by New Directions.[1]

In 2005 she collaborated with Ingrid Kerma, the London-based painter, writing "limit5" for the exhibition "Blushing Brides".[citation needed] In 2006 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on an experimental novel that would have incorporated a website with Arabic and Hebrew texts.[3]

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.[11][12]

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.[13]

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.[14] It included the short story "Climbers", which explores artistic ideals and commercial realities of the writing life, and which had previously been published in Harper's Magazine in November 2014.[15][16] Andrew Martin, writing in The Paris Review, describes this story as "surely the best piece of fiction about literary publishing in the twenty-first century".[15]

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".[17][18]

In 2025, her 2008 co-written novel (with Ilya Gridneff), Your Name Here, originally published on her website, was published as a commercial book by Deep Vellum and Dalkey Archive Press. It was described as a "sweeping and experimental anti-war novel".[12]

In 2026, DeWitt declined the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize as she felt unable to honour the associated "extensive promotion" commitments.[19][20] After her decline of the prize, the economist Tyler Cowen gave her a grant of the same sum.[21] Cowen described the newly established grant as being an "ad hoc" award or prize that does not require applications, and aimed at creatives or intellectuals who "are not supported ... or who have been failed" by existing awards and grants.[22]

Personal life

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As reported in 2016, "DeWitt knows, in descending order of proficiency, Latin, ancient Greek, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, Hebrew, and Japanese".[6]

While in Oxford, DeWitt married classicist David Levene; they divorced after seven years.[1] DeWitt said that "Meeting David is what made me a writer", and that he "introduced me to bridge, to poker, to statistics, things that to other people might seem completely unrelated".[6]

In 2004, DeWitt disappeared after contacting her lawyer with a suicide note. She changed her mind and decided not to go through with the plan.[3]

Works

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Novels and novellas

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  • DeWitt, Helen (2000). The Last Samurai. New York, London: Talk Miramax Books/Chatto & Windus. ISBN 9780786866687.
  • DeWitt, Helen (2011). Lightning Rods. New York: New Directions. ISBN 9781908276117.
  • DeWitt, Helen (2022). The English Understand Wool. New York: New Directions. ISBN 9780811230070.
  • DeWitt, Helen; Gridneff, Ilya (2025). Your Name Here. Champaign, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press.. (Previously published as a PDF on DeWitt's website in 2008).

Short story collection

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Alter, Alexandra (October 29, 2025). "A Work of Genius or a Complete Mess? Even Its Author Can't Decide". The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2026.
  2. 1 2 Macgowan, James (October 15, 2000). "After 50 attempts, Helen DeWitt's brainy prose gets brawny cash advances". The Ottawa Citizen. CanWest Interactive.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Turner, Jenny (September 11, 2008). "Move Your Head and the Picture Changes". London Review of Books. 30 (17). ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved September 1, 2026.
  4. ↑ DeWitt, Helen (1987). Quo virtus? The Concept of Propriety in Ancient Literary Criticism (D.Phil.). University of Oxford. Retrieved August 19, 2020.
  5. ↑ Reports of the President and the Treasurer. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 2006.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Lorentzen, Christian (July 13, 2016). "When Will Helen DeWitt Be Recognized As One of the Great American Novelists?". Vulture. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  7. ↑ The Paris Review (June 7, 2016). "Helen DeWitt: My First Time". The Paris Review. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Novels From the Edge: For Helen DeWitt, the Publishing World Is a High-Stakes Game". Observer. December 21, 2011. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  9. ↑ "an interview with helen dewitt | if:book". December 27, 2008. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  10. ↑ "The Screwer and the Screwed | Lauren Oyler". The Baffler. April 30, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. 1 2 Bergman, Jess (December 16, 2025). "Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff's Sweeping Anti-War Novel". The Nation. Retrieved January 1, 2026.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ "Announcing the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists". PEN America. January 15, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  15. 1 2 Martin, Andrew (May 29, 2018). "Helen DeWitt Lacerates the Literary World". The Paris Review. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
  16. ↑ Harper's Magazine, Volume 329, No. 1974.
  17. ↑ 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.
  18. ↑ Maloney, Iain (July 21, 2022). "Independent publisher gives short stories their due with 'Storybook ND' series". The Japan Times. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  19. ↑ Creamer, Ella (April 9, 2026). "Helen DeWitt turns down $175k Windham-Campbell prize over promotional requirements". The Guardian. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  20. ↑ Founders., Its Generous (April 8, 2026). "We lose again: Windham-Campbell Prize manqué". paperpools. Retrieved July 10, 2026.
  21. ↑ Murphy, Justin (April 15, 2026). "The Great Schizo-Autist War". RealClearBooks. Retrieved July 10, 2026.
  22. ↑ Cowen, Tyler (April 13, 2026). "EV Arts Patronage Tranche". Marginal REVOLUTION. Retrieved July 10, 2026.
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