Deborah Eisenberg is an American short story writer, essayist, and professor of creative writing at Columbia University. Born in 1945 in Winnetka, Illinois, to a Jewish family, she studied at the New School in New York City. Her longtime companion is actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, who is also a vocal Jewish activist for Palestinian rights.
Eisenberg has published five short story collections: “Transactions in a Foreign Currency” (1986), “Under the 82nd Airborne” (1992), “All Around Atlantis” (1997), “Twilight of the Superheroes” (2006), and “Your Duck Is My Duck” (2018). Her literary honors include a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the Rea Award for the Short Story (2015), the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and multiple O. Henry Awards. Her collected fiction was compiled in “The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg” (2010).
As a staunch anti-war activist, she has frequently used her platform as a Jewish artist to protest Israeli occupation policies. A longtime signatory of Jewish Voice for Peace, she was exceptionally active during the 2024–2025 global ceasefire movements, publicly condemning military actions in Gaza as a “betrayal of humanity. Eisenberg is also one of the signatories of the 2025 public statement, “Global Jewish Call on the UN and World Leaders to Sanction Israel.”