Irene Dische (born February 13, 1952) is an American-Austrian author, journalist, screenwriter, and librettist whose work explores the German-Jewish experience, alienation, and exile.

"[5] 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.

She stayed, raising a family in Berlin, and writing long reportages for the German version of the New Yorker, "Transatlantik".

[7] In 1986, she directed a film Zacharias, based on her father, a brilliant scientist who was, at 92, suffering from Alzheimers and living completely alone in a shabby neighborhood of NYC.

She also wrote a new libretto for a Schubert opera,"The German Professor", based on the true story of a high ranking Nazi scholar who assumed a new identity as a left wing liberal in 1968.

[13] Her latest novel is a voice from the 18th century, belonging to the first celebrated transgender hero, a famous swordsman and intellectual, both as a man, and as a woman.