Elana Klausner Vikan was born in Manhattan, raised in Cranston, Rhode Island, and educated at Bryn Mawr College, with a double major in French and Russian. She spent the summer of 1965 in a Russian language immersion program and trip to the Soviet Union under the National Defense Education Act, after which she studied in Paris for her junior year. At Princeton University, in the Department of Comparative Literature, she was awarded the Sibley Prize to support a research year in Paris. Elana was a lifelong teacher of French, Russian, and the history of art, working at Princeton University, Georgetown Day School, and, for 28 years, Roland Park Country School in Baltimore. Elana now spends time with her family and three grandsons, plays classical music on the piano, enjoys her Boston Terriers, and continues to travel extensively throughout Europe, though most often to her beloved France, with her husband Gary. She collaborated with Gary on the book Postcards from Behind the Iron Curtain, about their year in Romania in 1974-1975.