Anne Blonstein (1958-2011) was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England, and studied plant genetics at Cambridge University. Her doctoral dissertation, "Dwarf Mutants in Barley" was published in 1986. In 1983 Blonstein was appointed to a post-doctoral fellowship at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, where she remained for the rest of her life. She began publishing poetry in 1987, and in 1991 she left her career in science to pursue writing full time, working as a freelance translator and editor. Blonstein was a devoted reader of Paul Celan, with whom Blonstein felt a kinship: All of her great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants to Britain. Blonstein used devices such as the notariqon in worked on screen and correspondence with nobody.

Blonstein authored six full-length collections: the blue pearl (Salt, 2003), worked on screen (Poetry Salzburg, 2005), memory's morning (Shearsman, 2008), correspondence with nobody (Ellectrique Press, 2008), the butterflies and the burnings (Dusie Press, 2009), and to be continued (Shearsman Books, 2011), as well as Sand. Soda. Lime. (Broken Boulder Press, 2002), From Eternity to Personal Pronoun (Gribble Press, 2005), That Those Lips Had Language (Plan B Press, 2005), Thou Shalt Not Kill (Dusie Wee Chap, 2007), Hairpin Loop: Poems (Bright Hill Press, 2007), and Memory's Morning (Shearsman Books, 2008).