Ozick, Cynthia, 1928–, American writer, b. New York City, studied New York Univ. (B.A., 1949), Ohio State Univ. (M.A., 1950). Her fiction, written with high intelligence, elegant incisiveness, and sharp, frequently satiric wit, is mainly concerned with facets of Jewish life and thought including the Holocaust and its legacy, the Jewish presence in contemporary life, and Jewish mysticism and legend. Ozick's novels began with the lengthy Trust (1966) and continued with The Cannibal Galaxy (1983), The Messiah of Stockholm (1987), The Shawl (1989), The Puttermesser Papers (1997), and Heir to the Glimmering World (2004). Her collections of short fiction are The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories (1971), Bloodshed and Three Novellas (1976), and Levitation: Five Fictions (1982). Ozick's literary criticism and other intellectually rigorous essays have been collected in Art and Ardor (1983), Metaphor and Memory (1989), Fame and Folly (1996), Quarrel and Quandary (2000), and The Din in the Head (2006). Early in her career Ozick published poetry, and in her later years she has written plays.

Bibliography

See studies by J. Lowin (1988); V. E. Kielsky (1989); L. S. Friedman (1991); E. M. Kauvar (1993); S. B. Cohen (1994); V. H. Strandberg (1994).

Ozick, Cynthia

(born April 17, 1928, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. novelist and short-story writer. She graduated from New York University and received an M.A. from Ohio State University. She wrote often on Jewish themes, and much of her work presents a struggle with the notion that artistic creation can be a hubristic attempt to rival the Creator. Among these works are Trust (1966), Leviathan (1982), The Messiah of Stockholm (1987), The Shawl (1990), and The Puttermesser Papers (1997). Her essays have been collected in Art & Ardor (1983), Metaphor & Memory (1989), and Fame & Folly (1996).

Ozick, Cynthia (b. Hallote) (1928– ) writer; born in New York City. She studied at New York University (B.A. 1949), and Ohio State University (M.A. 1950). She worked as an advertising copywriter in Boston (1952–53), taught at New York University (1964–65), and was artist-in-residence at City College (1981–82). She lived in New Rochelle, N.Y., and wrote novels, short stories, essays, literary criticism, and translations. She is known for her mystical and supernatural fiction that often draws on Judaic law and history, as in The Pagan Rabbi, and Other Stories (1971), and Levitation: Five Fictions (1982).