Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize for her stories in The Paris Review and granted a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her novel Eileen was awarded the 2016 Pen/Hemingway Award.
Fully lives up to the hype. A taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven's wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish and compelling. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst The Times A sucker punch of a novel, full of fury and disgust, heart-wrenching in places, a masterclass in mood and tone. Eileen is a fantastic creation and a surprisingly satisfying antidote to the dozy and complacent heroines of much so-called literary fiction. -- Julie Myerson An unforgettable new American voice. Los Angeles Times The great power of this book...is that Eileen is never simply a literary gargoyle; she is painfully alive and human, and Ottessa Moshfegh writes her with a bravura wildness that allows flights of expressionistic fantasy to alternate with deadpan matter of factness... As a character study, the book is a remarkable tour de force... As an evocation of physical and psychological squalor, Eileen is original courageous and masterful. Moshfegh never panders. -- Sandra Newman Guardian A seductive novel...Moshfegh writes beautiful sentences. One after the other they unwind - playful, shocking, wise, morbid, witty, searingly sharp. The beginning of this novel is so impressive, so controlled yet whimsical, fresh and thrilling, you feel she can do anything. New York Times