Helen DeWitt was born in a suburb of Washington, D.C. in 1957.  Her father joined the Foreign Service in 1960, and she grew up primarily in South America.  She has a B.A. in Literae Humaniores and a D.Phil. in Greek and Latin Literature from the University of Oxford. Her first novel, The Last Samurai, was published in 2000 by Talk Miramax Books and subsequently in nineteen other countries. A Guggenheim Fellowship (2006-7) supported work on Risk, a novel incorporating the information design of Edward Tufte (in progress).  She has collaborated with the painter Ingrid Kerma on the show "Blushing Brides," with journalist Ilya Gridneff on the novel Your Name Here, with photographer Emily Horne on "Sexual Codes of the Europeans" for Photography & Prose (under curation), and with artist Elizabeth McAlpine on "Plantinga" for Photomonth Krakow.