Helen Epstein is the author of six books of literary non-fiction
including the two memoirs Children of the Holocaust and
Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search for her Mother's
History and the biography Joe Papp: An American Life.
All three books were named New York Times Notable Books of the
Year. She is also the translator from the Czech of Acting in
Terezin by Vlasta Schonova and the late Heda Margolius
Kovaly's classic memoir Under A Cruel Star: A LIfe in Prague
1941-1968. She and her husband are the founders of Plunkett
Lake Press
Born in Prague in 1947, Helen grew up in New York City, where she
attended and graduated from Hunter College High School (1965). She
became a journalist after the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia of
1968 when her personal account was published in the Jerusalem
Post.
In 1971, Helen graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of
Journalism and began freelancing for diverse publications including
the New York Times where her first Magazine cover story on
freelance musician Ed Birdwell ran in 1974. Her profiles of
legendary musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein
and Yo-Yo Ma are collected in Music Talks.
She began teaching journalism at New York University in 1974 and
became the first woman in the journalism department to be awarded
tenure. In 1986, she left NYU to move to the Boston area. She has
an active speaking career and has lectured at a wide variety of
venues including universities in Europe and North and South
America; health organisations; high schools; synagogues, libraries
and churches; the United States Military Academy at West Point; the
Embassy of the Czech Republic and the U.S. Holocaust Museum. The
mother of two grown sons, Helen shuttles between the Berkshires and
the Boston area with her husband and blogs about the arts for the
New England cultural website The Arts Fuse.
Rich and absorbing.... In the guise of a family memoir, [Epstein] brilliantly evokes Jewish life in the Czech lands.|Rich in detail, this work is told with a strong voice, and the result is a moving account of family history and the strength of its women.|In Epstein's expert and sensitive hands, truth becomes not only stranger than fiction, but more magnetic, wise and powerful.|Helen Epstein's literary pilgrimage to her past will move and enrich our quest for memory and understanding|A real life family saga … about Czech history and relations between men and women, Czechs and Jews, rich and poor. It is a compelling account, one that any woman trying to recover history will value.
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