The author of two novels and dozens of essays, Cynthia Ozick is best known for her three collections of short fiction, The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories (1971), Bloodshed and Three Novellas (1976), and Levitation: Five Fictions (1982). Despite the relatively small body of her work, she belongs to the front rank of American writers today.

Few contemporary authors have demonstrated her range, knowledge, or passion. Her novel Trust (1966) is an epic work, a vast psychological novel. By contrast, the novellas and short stories bring to mind writers as diverse as Thomas Mann, Isaac Babel, and Chekhov. Although these tales almost all concern American Jews, Ozick uses only incidentally such traditional subjects of American-Jewish fiction as the immigrant experience and contemporary family life. In turning to the oldest religious sources for her inspiration, Ozick has opened a path that other American-Jewish writers may follow.

Cynthia Ozick was born in New York...