Cynthia Ozick was born April 17, 1928, in New York City, the second child of Russian immigrants William and Celia Ozick. Her parents owned and operated a drugstore in the Bronx, where Cynthia worked delivering prescriptions. Her father was a Jewish scholar, and her uncle was a well-respected Hebrew poet who first introduced her to the world of literature.

During her early school years in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, Cynthia endured anti-Semitic attacks and slurs, especially when she refused to sing Christmas carols with the rest of her class. She escaped into reading, getting books from her older brother and from a traveling library that came by her parents' drugstore. Her school life took a more positive turn when she entered Hunter College High School in Manhattan, where Ozick's academic excellence was more appreciated. After high school, she went on to graduate cum laude from...