Born into a non-practicing Jewish family, Rose is known for her work on the relationship between psychoanalysis, feminism and literature. She is a graduate of St Hilda's College, Oxford and gained her higher degree (mâitrise) from the Sorbonne and her doctorate from the University of London.

Her Albertine, a novel from 2001, is a feminist variation on Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.

Rose is a regular broadcaster on and contributor to the London Review of Books.

Rose is critical of Zionism, describing it as "[having] been traumatic for the Jews as well as the Palestinians." In 2005, writing for the online political magazine Open Democracy, she called for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

Rose's elder sister was the philosopher Gillian Rose.