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Article: Cynthia Ozick
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- January 15, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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WORD SPINNER, image weaver, philosopher of uncompromising moral
force: If there is such a thing as a literary pantheon in America,
then Cynthia Ozick is surely its Athena. One of the finest essayists
in the English language, Ozick casts sentences that fairly pulse with
the electricity of a highly charged mind.
And yet Ozick's work is only marginally known. Her obsessive care
for the heft and texture of her words - her meticulous approach to
craft - have served to produce only a slender thread of literature in
a nonstop writing life of 66 years. To date she has but three novels
(Trust, 1966; The Messiah of Stockholm, 1987; The Shawl, 1989), four
short story collections (The Pagan Rabbi, ...