Ruth Fainlight was born in the United States in the year 1931, but now lives in the United Kingdom. Still alive and active today, she is a poet, translator, and writer of fiction. For a time, she also lived in Spain and France, helping with her ability to translate languages. She has one son, who works as a reporting photographer, and a husband who passed away in 2010.
To date, Ruth Fainlight has published several successful poems, including, "Cages", "To See the Matter Clearly", "The Region's Violence", and "Another Full Moon". There are a variety of themes in her work, but Fainlight tends to use the process of vivid description and relating plots to familiar circumstances in her writing. She often tries to point out that there needs to be more equality in the world, as she says in one quote, "I am a poet who is a woman, not a woman poet.". "Elegant Sibyl" is perhaps her most famous poem.