Helen Benedict Biography

Helen Benedict is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the award-winning author of six novels and five books of nonfiction. Her latest novel Sand Queen (Soho Press) tells the story of a young female soldier and an Iraqi woman caught up in the Iraq War. Publisher’s Weekly called Sand Queen “a thrilling and thoughtful new novel.” Booklist said “Funny shocking painful and at times deeply disturbing 'Sand Queen' takes readers beyond the news and onto the battlefield.”
Helen based Sand Queen on the research she conducted for her nonfiction book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq an exposé of the abuse and experiences of military women serving in the Iraq War. The Lonely Soldier won the National Women’s Political Caucus 2010 EMMA (Exceptional Merit in Media Award) the 2010 Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses and her related article in Salon magazine won the 2008 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Helen’s play The Lonely Soldier Monologues was performed in New York City in 2009 and 2010 and has been performed elsewhere in the country since.
Helen’s last novel The Edge of Eden came out in paperback in November 2010. Set in the remote islands of Seychelles in 1960 it concerns such issues as the legacy of slavery and the power balance between men and women servants and masters children and adults. Another recent novel The Opposite of Love (Viking 2007) concerns race and the moral dilemmas involved in trying to rescue a child. Her other novels are The Sailor’s Wife set in Greece after the fall of the junta; Bad Angel about Dominican-Americans in New York and A World Like This about a teenager in prison in England. Her last nonfiction book was Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes (Oxford) and she has also written Recovery: How to Survive Sexual Assault and Safe Strong and Streetwise.

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