Courtesy of Wikipedia
Irene Dische (February 13, 1952) is an American-Austrian author, journalist, screenwriter, and librettist whose work explores the German-Jewish experience, alienation, and exile.
Daughter of Jewish refugees, Ukrainian-American scientist Zacharias Dische and one time deputy Medical Examiner of NYC, Dr. Maria Renate Dische (née Rother), Dische was born and raised speaking German in the Washington Heights district of New York City. She learned English in kindergarten, commuting two hours a day by subway and bus to attend the Brearley School in Manhattan, but eventually dropped out and never finished high school. She worked in East Africa for the paleontologist Louis Leakey, who, she said, “had a great respect for high-school dropouts.” She returned to the United States in 1972, and enrolled at Harvard University, majoring in anthropology, but switching to History and Literature after Louis Leakey died. After graduation, Dische, who had dreamt of studying medicine but flunked her first semester of pre-med courses, studied with Robert Fitzgerald, who urged her to become a writer. Since she saw no reasonable alternative, she began working as a freelance writer, publishing in The New Yorker and The Nation.
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