Helen Epstein
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Helen Epstein is a writer of memoir, journalism and biography who lives in Massachusetts. She was born November 27, 1947 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, raised in New York City, and graduated from Hunter College High School in 1965. She became a journalist on August 21, 1968 when she was caught in the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Her first-person account was published in the Jerusalem Post where she later worked as a university correspondent. In 1971, she graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and began writing cultural reportage for the New York Times Sunday edition as well as many magazines, specializing in profiles of classical musicians. Several of these are collected in her book Music Talks.[1]
She began teaching journalism at New York University in 1974, becoming the first woman tenured professor in that department. In 1979, she published her best-known book, Children of the Holocaust,[2] which has since become a much-translated classic on transmission of trauma across generations, used in psychology courses as well as Holocaust Studies. Her sequel to this book is the memoir Where She Came From[3] which has also been widely translated.
Her biographies of Joseph Papp, producer and founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival and Tina Packer, founder and director of Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshires of Massachusetts reflect her ongoing interest in theater.
Epstein is married to consultant Patrick Mehr and has two grown sons, Daniel and Sam. She lectures widely on memoir and family history and continues to write and edit books.
