Helen Frances Barolini (née Mollica; November 18, 1925 – March 29, 2023) was an American writer, editor, and translator.

[note 1] Among her notable works are Umbertina (1979), a novel which tells the story of four generations of women in one Italian-American family; and an anthology, The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women (1985), which called attention to an emerging, and previously unnoticed, class of writers.

[2] It was praised by novelists Alice Walker and Cynthia Ozick, and hailed as a major work by critic Jules Chametzky.

[7] In an essay on Italian-American novelists, Fred Gardaphé writes, "Until The Dream Book appeared in 1985, Italian American women had not had the critics or literary historians who would attempt to probe their background, unlock the reasons of past silence, and acknowledge that they are finally present.

[4] Barolini was an invited writer at Yaddo (1965) and the MacDowell Colony (1974); writer in residence at the Quarry Farm Center of Elmira College (1989); a Rockefeller Foundation resident scholar at Bellagio Center in Lake Como (1991); and visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome (2001).