Liz Jensen was born in Oxfordshire, the daughter of a Danish father and a mother whose family were Moroccan Jews.
[4] She then spent four years as a sculptor, translator and freelance writer in France,[5] where she wrote her first novel, Egg Dancing (1995).
She then returned to London to write Ark Baby (1998), The Paper Eater (2000), and War Crimes for the Home (2002).
While living in the UK, Jensen also spent ten years working as a television and radio producer for the BBC.
[5][11][7] Her younger son by her first marriage, Raphaël Coleman, a child actor-turned-climate change activist, died from an undiagnosed heart condition at the age of 25 in 2020.