Gail Holst-Warhaft completed her BA in 1960 from the University of Melbourne, majoring in English Literature and History of Art. In the 1970s she worked as a musician and writer in Greece, and performed in the orchestra of Mikis Theodorakis and other composers. In the 1980s she moved to the USA and in 1990 received a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from Cornell University.
She has taught in departments at Cornell University and worked as an independent writer, translator and poet. Holst-Warhaft has been the recipient of Australia Council Music Board and Literature Board grants as well the 2001 Poetry Greece Award.
Her works include Road to Rembetika: Music of a Greek Sub-Culture, Songs of Love, Sorrow and Hasish (1975), which has been translated into Greek, German, French and Turkish, Theodorakis; Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (1980), The Collected Poems of Nikos Kavadias (translation)(1985), Dangerous Voices: Womens' Laments and Greek Literature (1992) and The Cue for Passion: Grief and its Political Uses (2000).
