Helen Yglesias

Helen Bassine Yglesias (March 29, 1915 – March 28, 2008) was an American novelist.

Early life Yglesias was the youngest of seven children born to Solomon and Kate Bassine, both Yiddish-speaking immigrants of Polish-Jewish and Russian-Jewish origins who lived in the Pale Settlement. Her family moved (and lived) in an apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Solomon Bassine was the failed owner of several grocery stores. Helen wrote her first novel about a teenage girl in a New York City high school, on three notebooks on her kitchen table when she was a teenager herself. The book was never published, however, and, after high school, she worked at jobs selling underwear, stuffing envelopes, teaching ballroom dancing, and typing manuscripts. Yglesias worked as an editor at The Nation from 1965 to 1969, by which time she was a mother of 3.

Career Helen Yglesias was on the staff of The Daily Worker during the 1940s where she wrote books reviews and edited the cultural section of the paper. In 1964 she became a staff member of The Nation, and later served as its literary editor. Yglesias was also a member of the Newspaper Guild.

She started writing professionally when she was 54; her first published novel was How She Died (1972). The protagonist is Mary Moody Schwartz, the daughter of a Communist who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union during the 1930s. According to the New York Times, it delved into "the roots of American radicalism, the story evolves into an account of one woman's struggle with cancer and the disorganized attempts of her family and friends to help her."

Death Yglesias died on March 28, 2008, one day short of her 93rd birthday, in Manhattan of natural causes. She is survived by her daughter Tamar Cole, Lewis Cole, a son from her first marriage to Bernard Cole; and novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias, a son from her second marriage to the novelist Jose Yglesias; and six grandchildren, including columnist Matthew Yglesias.