helena frith powell

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Category: Pet hates

The wrong message

29th March 2016

I read with dismay that Germany is about to introduce single-sex carriages on the underground due to the amount of sex attacks on women by migrants. What kind of message does this send? It sends a message that we are willing to accept this outrageous b …

New Year? Bah! Humbug!

30th December 2013

As my final day of drinking alcohol, eating chocolate and refusing to exercise begins, I have been reflecting on how dull New Year’s Eve really is. Not only because you only have a few hours to do a lot of things you like doing such as sipping champagn …

Lawyers, orphans and the pathetic Mr Putin

28th December 2012

Several years ago,when I was still editing the magazine Central European (a must-read) I used to travel to Russia every few weeks to write a supplement we ran called Russiamoney. This was back in the early 1990s when Russia was just opening up, and the …

Admin chores (yawn)

13th February 2012

One of the best things about living here is that there are people to do most things for you. When you go to the petrol station, a nice man (yes, it is always a man) fills up your car. At the supermarket, there is a packer to do your packing, at home yo …

The new Lampard?

3rd October 2011

Last week, in fact most weeks, was dominated by sport. First Leo became a class rep at school and proudly shared with us the suggestions he is going to make to improve the life of his classmates. First up, change the astro-turf pitch to grass. Second, …

Three in the morning stress

12th August 2010

I suppose if you have to be awake at 3am there are worse places to be. I am sitting on a rooftop terrace in Paris with an (albeit limited) view of the Eiffel Tower. Our hotel room is a tiny attic room at the rather oddly named Hotel Wo on the rue de St …

Our poor house

10th October 2009

Sainte Cecile was burgled yesterday. I got the news from a friend in the village and felt like weeping. The children were even more upset than I was. “You have to remember it is only things,” I told Olivia, trying to keep calm. “It is not a person.” Sh …

Fear of Flying

3rd June 2009

Not the book by Erica Jong, but real fear. After the Air France crash I have it even worse. And it was pretty bad to begin with. It is just one of those things I have always hated and always dreaded. At one stage (when I was about 19) it got so bad tha …

A French experience

6th May 2009

Yesterday was a busy day. In between checking my amazon rating, I interviewed Christine Ockrent, who is Belgian but one of those women you always think of as French because she made her career there. She was, among other notable things, France’s first …

Oscar night

24th February 2009

There was an Oscar party last night at the Intercontinental Hotel here in Abu Dhabi. Three friends and I decided to go, mainly because the dress code was “red carpet” and I can resist no excuse to wear my full-length sequinned dress which now looks eve …

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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.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

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