Irene Dische worked for the paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey in East Africa from 1970-1972. Upon her return to the U.S., she studied at Harvard University and published her first stories in The New Yorker and The Nation. In 1977, Irene Dische moved to Berlin. She currently commutes between Berlin and Rhinebeck, New York.

Dische was awarded the Deutschen Kritikerpreis in 1989. In 1991, she was the first recipient of the Jeanette Schocken Preis. She is a member of PEN Liechtenstein.