London-based photographer Jillian Edelstein was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. She attended the LCC photojournalism course in the UK after graduating from he University of Cape Town, B.Soc.Sc (Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology Social Work). Her portraits have appeared internationally in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The FT Weekend Magazine, Vanity Fair, Interview, Vogue, Port, The Guardian Weekend, The Sunday Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Forbes, GQ and Esquire.Her work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers' Gallery, The Royal Academy, and OXO Gallery in London; Sothebys and Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in France, Bensusan Museum, Robben Island Museum in South Africa and Dali International Photography Festival, Yunnan Province, China. Edelstein is the recipient of awards including Kodak UK Young Photographer of the Year, Photographers' Gallery Portrait Photographer of the Year Award, the Visa d'Or at the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan in 1997, the European Final Art Polaroid Award in 1999, and the John Kobal Book Award. In 2018 she was included in the 'Hundred Heroines' list of women from across the world who are transforming photography today, initiated by The Royal Photographic Society.

Her first monograph Truth and Lies was published by Granta in 2002.