Helene Cardona Biography

Hélène Cardona is a citizen of the United States, France and Spain.

Hélène was born in Paris of a Greek mother and Spanish father and raised all over Europe. She has lived in Geneva, London, Cambridge, Llandudno, Wales, Monte-Carlo, Bremen, Tarragona, Paris, New York City and Santa Monica, and travels extensively. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, Greek and Italian.

She studied English Philology and Literature in Cambridge, England, Spanish at the International Universities of Santander and Baeza, Spain, and German at the Goethe Institute in Bremen, Germany. She graduated from the Music Conservatory in Geneva in piano. She attended Hamilton College, New York, where she was also assistant professor of French and Spanish.

She received her Master's in American Literature from the Sorbonne, Paris, where she wrote her thesis on Henry James.

She has worked as a translator/interpreter for the Canadian Embassy, the French Chamber of Commerce and as a translater and language coach for the film industry. Hélène translated the Lawrence Bridges film Muse of Fire for the NEA and has received grants from the Durfee Foundation and the French Cultural Services of Los Angeles.

A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she studied with Ellen Burstyn at the Actors’ Studio.

Hélène played Françoise 'Fuffi' in Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat and Candy in Lawrence Kasdan’s Mumford. Her voice credits include The Painted Veil, The Interpreter, The Bourne Supremacy, The Terminal, The Pink Panther and others. For Serendipity, she co-wrote with Peter Chelsom the song 'Lucienne', which she also sang.

Her first book, The Astonished Universe, an uplifting and luminous collection of poetry about consciousness, is the first bilingual edition in English and French from Red Hen Press. Richard Wilbur writes that “each poem fully exists in two tongues at once, and this adds to the book’s great charm and visionary quality.”

Her father is the renowned poet José Manuel Cardona from Ibiza. Hélène translated his long poem Desde el Ponto Euxino (From the Euxine Sea).

Hélène is also an equestrian, dancer, dream analyst and yoga practitioner.