She was born in Jerusalem. Her Jewish parents, Kurt May and Vera May (née Feinberg), fled Nazi Germany,Jerusalem: the Biography (By Simon Sebag Montefiore, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2011, page 530) but two of her grandparents as well as many other relatives in Germany who didn't escape were murdered in the Holocaust. She grew up in Jerusalem,“Our Israel Diary, 1978”: Travels to Israel with Harold Pinter (by Antonia Fraser) (One World books, 2017; page 8) Switzerland and England. She was educated at Dartington Hall School and at Oxford University where she read English literature at St Anne's College. She was married to the literary and theatrical critic John Gross (1965–88). The couple had two children, Tom Gross and Susanna Gross. Since 1993, she has been married to Sir Geoffrey Owen, the former editor of the Financial Times.
