Jean Babette Stein (February 9, 1934 – April 30, 2017) was an American author and editor.
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Early life
Stein was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. Her father was Jules C. Stein, co-founder of the Music Corporation of America (MCA) and the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her mother, Doris J. Stein, established the Doris Jones Stein Foundation. Jean Stein's sister, Susan Shiva, died of breast cancer in 1983, as did Doris Stein.
Stein was educated at the Katharine Branson School in Ross, California, then at Brillantmont International School in Lausanne, Switzerland, after which she graduated from Miss Hewitt's Classes in New York City. She then spent two years at Wellesley College and attended classes at the University of Paris (formerly known as the Sorbonne). While in Paris she interviewed William Faulkner, with whom she had an affair, and, according to the historian Joel Williamson, offered the interview to The Paris Review in exchange for being made an editor there.