Deborah Eisenberg
Eisenberg in 2009
Born	(1945-11-20)November 20, 1945 (age 80) Winnetka, Illinois,[1] U.S.
Occupation	Writer professor
Alma mater	Marlboro College;The New School[2]
Notable awards	1987Whiting Award 1987–88Guggenheim Fellowship 2000Rea Award for the Short Story 2003Lannan Literary Fellowship 2009MacArthur Fellowship 2011PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction O. Henry Awards, 1986, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2006, 2013
Partner	Wallace Shawn (1972–present)[3]

Deborah Eisenberg (born November 20, 1945) is an Americanshort story writer, actress and teacher. She was a professor of writing atColumbia University.^[4]

Eisenberg was born in Winnetka, Illinois. Her family isJewish.^[2] She grew up in suburbanChicago,Illinois, and moved toNew York City in the late 1960s.

Eisenberg was an editorial assistant atThe New York Review of Books in 1973.^[5] She taught at theUniversity of Virginia from 1994 until 2011, when she accepted a teaching position atColumbia University's MFA writing program.

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Eisenberg has written five collections of stories:Transactions in a Foreign Currency (1986),Under the 82nd Airborne (1992),All Around Atlantis (1997),Twilight of the Superheroes (2006), andYour Duck Is My Duck (2018).Ben Marcus, reviewingTwilight of the Superheroes forThe New York Times Book Review, called Eisenberg "one of the most important fiction writers now at work. This work is great."^[6]Michiko Kakutani, reviewing the same collection inThe New York Times, wrote that Eisenberg has a "playwright's ear for dialogue and a journalistic eye for the askew detail".^[7] Her first two story collections were republished in one volume asThe Work (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg (1997).^[8] Her first four collections were subsequently reprinted inThe Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (2010).^[9]

Eisenberg's later books includeYour Duck Is My Duck (2018), a story collection that continues her exploration of contemporary relationships and moral complexity.^[10]

Eisenberg has also written a play,Pastorale, which was produced atSecond Stage in New York City in 1982. She has written for such magazines asThe New York Review of Books,The New Yorker, andThe Yale Review.^[8] She is the credited screenwriter of the 2020Steven Soderbergh filmLet Them All Talk, for which she wrote a 50-page treatment from which the actors largely improvised the dialogue.^[11]

Eisenberg received theRea Award for the Short Story in 2000, an award granted for significant contribution to the short story form. She has also received aWhiting Award and aGuggenheim Fellowship, both in 1987; and sixO. Henry Awards, in 1986, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2006, and 2013.^[12][13]

In 2007, Eisenberg was elected into theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters,^[1] and in 2009 she was awarded aMacArthur Fellowship.^[14] She won the 2011PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction forThe Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg.^[15]

Eisenberg received thePEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story in May 2015.^[16]

Your Duck Is My Duck was one of three finalists forThe Story Prize for the year 2018.^[17]

In April 2015, in an exchange withPEN America's Executive DirectorSuzanne Nossel published inThe Intercept byGlenn Greenwald,^[18] Eisenberg criticized PEN's decision to bestow its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award toCharlie Hebdo, calling the choice "an opportunistic exploitation of the horrible murders in Paris to justify and glorify offensive material expressingIslamophobic and nationalistic sentiments already widely shared in the Western world."^[18] Joining Eisenberg in her protest of PEN's award ceremony werePeter Carey,Francine Prose,Teju Cole,Rachel Kushner andTaiye Selasi.^[19] In addition, 145 writers—includingJunot Díaz,Lorrie Moore,Joyce Carol Oates andMichael Cunningham—signed a letter protesting PEN's decision.^[20]

Eisenberg lives in theChelsea neighborhood of New York City.^[21]

Her longtime companion is actor-writerWallace Shawn.^[3] She was frequently referred to as "Debbie" in the filmMy Dinner with Andre, in which she also appears as a dining patron in the restaurant near the beginning.

• Transactions in a Foreign Currency. Knopf. February 12, 1986.ISBN 978-0-394-54598-1.
• Under the 82nd Airborne. Faber. 1992.ISBN 978-0-571-16439-4.
• The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg. Noonday Press. 1997.ISBN 978-0-374-52492-0.
• All Around Atlantis. Simon & Schuster. 1998.ISBN 978-0-671-02462-8.
• Twilight of the Superheroes. Picador. 2006.ISBN 978-0-330-44460-6.
• The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. Picador. 2010.ISBN 978-0-312-42989-8.
• Your Duck Is My Duck. Ecco. 2018.ISBN 978-0-062-68877-4.

• Pastorale. Samuel French, Inc. 1983.ISBN 978-0-573-61363-0.

• Ken Heyman. (1988).Hipshot: One-Handed, Auto-Focus Photographs by a Master Photographer. Foreword Eisenberg. Aperture.
• Deborah Eisenberg (1994).Air: 24 Hours. paintings byJennifer Bartlett. H.N. Abrams.ISBN 9780810931282.
• Michael John LaChiusa (2003).Little Fish. (Short Story Deborah Eisenberg). Dramatists Play Service, Inc.ISBN 978-0-8222-1973-6.
• Francine Prose; Mark Hussey, eds. (2004)."On Mrs. Dalloway".The Mrs. Dalloway Reader. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.ISBN 978-0-15-603015-1.

• William Miller Abrahams, ed. (1995).Prize Stories 1995: The O. Henry Awards. Doubleday.ISBN 978-0-385-47672-0.
• Richard Ford, ed. (2007).The New Granta Book of the American Short Story. Granta Books.ISBN 978-1-86207-847-5.
• Laura Furman, ed. (2006).The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008. Anchor Books.ISBN 978-1-4000-9539-1.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDeborah Eisenberg.

• Deborah Eisenberg atIMDb
• Deborah Eisenberg archive fromThe New York Review of Books
• Catherine Steindler (Spring 2013)."Deborah Eisenberg, The Art of Fiction No. 218".The Paris Review. Spring 2013 (204).
• Profile atWhiting Foundation
• Interview atKCRW Bookworm

• 1945 births
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• MacArthur Fellows
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• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners
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