Helen Benedict

Benedict was born in London, England, to parents who were American anthropologists. As a child, she lived in Mauritius and Seychelles, where her parents conducted fieldwork. Seychelles became the setting for Benedict's novel, The Edge of Eden. Her background as a child of anthropologists has informed her work both as a novelist and a journalist. She grew up partly in London, partly in California, and attended university in both England and the United States. She worked for newspapers in both countries, and obtained her master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979. In 1981, Benedict moved to New York, where she freelanced for five years, publishing short stories and articles in literary journals, magazines and newspapers. She began teaching at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 1986, where she is now a full-time professor.