Mark Helprin (born June 28, 1947) is an American-Israeli novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

While Helprin's fictional works straddle a number of disparate genres and styles, he has stated that he "belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend".

He has written three children's books, all of which are illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg: Swan Lake, A City in Winter, and The Veil of Snows.

His writings, including political op-eds, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal (for which he was a contributing editor until 2006), The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, National Review, American Heritage, and other publications.

Adapted from a speech he had given at West Point, he said his poor eyesight made him ineligible for service in the US military, but was no impediment to fighting in the Israeli Defense Force.

[5] Helprin wrote an op-ed published in the May 20, 2007 issue of The New York Times, in which he argued that intellectual property rights should be assigned to an author or artist as far as Congress could practically extend them.

[9] Lessig called Helprin's writing "insanely sloppy"[10] and also criticized HarperCollins for publishing a book "riddled with the most basic errors of fact.

"[9] In response to such criticisms, Helprin wrote a long defense of his book in the September 21, 2009 edition of National Review, which concluded: "Digital Barbarism is not as much a defense of copyright as it is an attack upon a distortion of culture that has become a false savior in an age of many false saviors.

"[11] A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Helprin has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Ellis Island and Other Stories[12] and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to a short letter [from the NYT Book Review] to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages that asked them to identify "'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'"

On November 8, 2010, in New York City, Helprin was awarded the 2010 Salvatori Prize in the American Founding by the Claremont Institute.