helena frith powell

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Category: Abu Dhabi

The sound of learning

15th January 2009

I have just finished writing a timetable for the children’s after-school activities. Just looking at it exhausts me. Leo has football three times a week and now that he has been put forward for the RAD Pre-Primary ballet exam (YES!) he has to take his …

Expat Children Syndrome

8th January 2009

One of the things I noticed about coming back to Abu Dhabi was how much more settled (and nicer) the children are being. It seems to me that going home to Sainte Cecile and realising it is all still there and not about to go away has made them more set …

A grand day out

2nd January 2009

Can you believe it? We got home to Abu Dhabi after a long and rather hellish journey and headed straight off to a tennis tournament. Not just any tennis tournament. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in ONE AFTERNOON This is the tennis equivalent of buying …

Brazilian Birthday surprise

17th December 2008

No, nothing to do with waxing, but Two Lipsticks & a Lover is now available in Brazil. The news was a lovely way to end an otherwise fairly unremarkable birthday. The highlight was lunch with Olivia and Bea at IKEA where they looked and behaved like pr …

Special guest blog from Rupert

5th December 2008

For anyone who has filled their car with petrol over the last year and baulked at the bill, I can set your mind at rest: the price was worth paying. Of course, that’s with the exception of the share taken by western governments, who fritter it on usele …

I don’t want your freedom….

4th December 2008

So I missed ‘Freedom’ because we were keen to leave the concert before everyone else in case of a two-hour traffic jam. Actually I forgot to mention that Alicia Keys played before George, she was truly incredible, I liked her almost more. Especially wh …

Older than the hills

1st December 2008

Tomorrow is the UAE’s birthday. It is 37 years old. That makes me older than the country I am living in. Kind of makes you think. How often does that happen to a person I wonder? The whole city is lit up like a Christmas tree. There are cars completely …

A different world

26th November 2008

It seems like a different world to the one we arrived in. When I first had to have documents translated from French to Arabic by an official translator it felt like an insurmountable task. Find the translator (there is only one in Abu Dhabi which trans …

It’s a girl!

23rd November 2008

So Wasta (pictured) is a girl, and she is now called Chloe, which suits her well. She seems to be settling in well, and has helped the children to settle down too. They are a lot happier I am pleased to report and have not mentioned moving back again. …

We have wasta

20th November 2008

Wasta is what you need to get ahead in the Middle East. It can best be translated as connections or influence. Yesterday as Rupert and I were walking to lunch a tiny black and white kitten literally threw itself in my path and started miaowing at me.  …

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group. She writes a beauty blog www.beautyorbeast.uk.

Her third novel, The Arnolfini Marriage, based on a romance that evolves around a van Eyck masterpiece came out in 2016. As well as contributing regularly for newspapers and magazines, writing short stories and studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Smullö that will be published in spring 2020.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and came out in paperback in April 2018.

Helena was educated at Durham University and lived in the Languedoc region of France for eight years, where the family still have a home. She lives between there and London with her husband Rupert and their three children.

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