Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.Cynthia Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Russian-born parents, Celia and William Ozick, proprietors of the Park View Pharmacy in the Pelham Bay neighborhood.

As a girl, Ozick helped to deliver prescriptions. Growing up in the Bronx, she remembers stones thrown at her and being called a Christ-killer as she ran past the two churches in her neighborhood. In school she was publicly shamed for refusing to sing Christmas carols.

She attended Hunter College High School in Manhattan. She earned her B.A. from New York University and went on to study at Ohio State University, where she completed an M.A. in English literature, focusing on the novels of Henry James.