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Cynthia Ozick

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Author

The Resume

    (April 17, 1928- )
    Born in New York City, New York
    Author of 'The Shawl,' 'The Pagan Rabbi,' 'Art and Ardor,' 'The Puttermesser Papers,' 'Heir to the Glimmering World,' and 'Dictation: A Quartet'

Why she might be annoying:

    She was called 'the Emily Dickinson of the Bronx.'
    Her first major essay was called 'All the World Wants the Jews Dead.'
    She claimed to have been disciplined for refusing to sing Christmas carols as a schoolgirl.
    She criticized William Styron for making the heroine in Sophie's Choice 'a Polish Catholic rather than a Jew. '
    She has written fiction about the Holocaust, but criticizes other writers for doing the same thing, saying: 'I would stick up for novels about serial killers. The reason is that the government is not institutionalizing serial killers.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her favorite books include 'Jane Eyre' and 'Little Women.'
    She has publicly debated Norman Mailer and Harold Bloom.
    Three of her stories won first prize in the O. Henry Short Story competition.
    David Foster Wallace called her 'one of the greatest living American writers.'
    'The Shawl' was chosen by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Big Read selection.
    She said: 'Reading is bread. If you live a life in which you do not read, then you are starving yourself. You are living a life of deprivation. There's just no other way to define what reading is for the reader or for life.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying