Lightship Patron

Cynthia Ozick was born in New York City in 1928. She earned her B.A. from New York University and went on to study English Literature at Ohio State University, where she completed an M.A. She is a novelist, short story writer, dramatist, and poet and is regarded as one of the foremost literary luminaries in the U.S.

Cynthia's first novel, Trust, was published in 1966. The Cannibal Galaxy, a novel set in an all-day Jewish school, was published in 1983. The Messiah of Stockholm was published in 1987. The Puttermesser Papers was a finalist in the National Book Award (1987). Her novel, Heir to the Glimmering World (The Bear Boy in the UK), was short-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In 2010, she published her latest novel, Foreign Bodies.

Cynthia has published seven collections of short stories: The Pagan Rabbi (1971); Bloodshed and Three Novellas (1976); Levitation: five Fictions (1982); Envy, or Yiddish in America (1989); The Shawl (1989); Collected Stories (2007); Dictation: A Quartet (2008). Three of her stories have won first prize in the O. Henry competition, and five of her stories were anthologized in the yearly anthologies of Best American Short Stories. In 1986, she was the first recipient of the Michael Rea Award for career contributions to the short story. In 2008 she was awarded the PEN/Malamud Award established by Bernard Malamud’s family to honor excellence in the art of the short story.