Jump to content

Ottessa Moshfegh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ottessa Moshfegh
Moshfegh at the 2015 Texas Book Festival.
Moshfegh at the 2015Texas Book Festival.
BornOttessa Charlotte Moshfegh
(1981-05-20)May 20, 1981(age 43)
Boston,Massachusetts,U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • writer
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBarnard College(BA)
Brown University(MFA)
Genre
  • Fiction
  • essays
Notable worksEileen
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
PartnerLuke B. Goebel

Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh(/oʊˈtɛsəˈmɒʃfɛɡ/;[1][2]born May 20, 1981) is an American author and novelist.[3]Herdebut novel,Eileen(2015), won theHemingway Foundation/PEN Award,was shortlisted for theBooker Prize,and was a fiction finalist for theNational Book Critics Circle Award.[4]Moshfegh's subsequent novels includeMy Year of Rest and Relaxation,Death in Her Hands,andLapvona.

Early life and education

[edit]

Moshfegh was born inBoston, Massachusetts,in 1981.[5]Her mother was born inCroatiaand her father, who is Jewish,[6]was born inIran.[7]Her parents were both musicians and taught at theNew England Conservatory of Music.As a child, Moshfegh learned to play piano and clarinet.[4]

She attended theCommonwealth Schoolin Boston[8]and received her BA in English fromBarnard Collegein 2002.[9]She completed an MFA in Literary Arts fromBrown Universityin 2011.[9]During her MFA study at Brown, she taught undergraduates, includingAntonia Angress,author of the 2022 novelSirens & Muses.[10]Moshfegh was aWallace Stegner Fellowin fiction atStanford Universityfrom 2013 to 2015.[11][12]

Career

[edit]

After college, Moshfegh moved to China, where she taught English and worked in a punk bar.[4]

In her mid-twenties, Moshfegh moved to New York City. She worked forOverlook Press,and then as an assistant forJean Stein.After contractingcat-scratch fever,she left the city and earned an MFA fromBrown University.[4]During those years, she supported herself by selling vintage clothing which she has described as mostly "tea dresses."[13]

Works

[edit]

In 2014, Fence Books published Moshfegh's novellaMcGlue.McGluewas the first recipient of the Fence Modern Prize in Prose.[14]

In August 2015, Penguin Press published Moshfegh's novelEileen.It received positive reviews.[15][16]The book was shortlisted for the2016 Man Booker Prize.[17]In the book, Eileen, the protagonist and narrator, describes a series of events that occurred years ago, when she was young and living in a Massachusetts town that she calls "X-ville." At the beginning of the novel, she is working as a secretary at a local juvenile prison while living with and caring for her abusive father, a retired police officer with alcoholism and paranoia. As the story continues, the dramatic situation that causes her to leave her life in X-ville is revealed.

Homesick for Another World,a collection of short stories, was published in January 2017.[18]

On July 10, 2018, Penguin Press published Moshfegh's second novel,My Year of Rest and Relaxation.The book describes a young art history graduate living in New York City over 15 months from mid-June 2000.[19]Recently graduated from college and ambivalently mourning the recent deaths of her parents, she quits her job as a gallerist[19]and undertakes to sleep for a year with the assistance of sleeping pills and other medications prescribed by a disreputable psychiatrist.

Also in 2018, Moshfegh wrote a piece forGrantain which she describes an experience she had with a much older male writer when she was 17 years old.[20]

Moshfegh is a frequent contributor to theParis Reviewand has published six stories in the journal since 2012.[21]

In August 2020,Vintagepublished Moshfegh's third novel,Death in Her Hands.[22]Moshfegh has called the book "a loneliness story."[11]

In June 2022, Penguin Press published Moshfegh's fourth novel,Lapvona,which follows Marek, the abused son of the town shepherd, along with other characters from the fictional, medievalfiefdomof Lapvona.[23]

Moshfegh co-wrote the 2022 drama filmCausewaywith her husband, Luke Goebel, and Elizabeth Sanders.[24]It premiered at the2022 Toronto International Film Festival.[25]

Moshfegh has cited the poet and novelistCharles Bukowskias an influence on her work. Like Moshfegh, Bukowski created characters who were considered socially deprived and isolated.[26]

Personal life

[edit]

Moshfegh is married to the writer Luke B. Goebel, whom she met during an interview.[27]They live inPasadena, California.[28]

Awards and honors

[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]

Novels

[edit]

Short fiction

[edit]
Collections

Novellas

  • My New Novel, 2021[33]
Stories[a]
  • "Medicine",Vice,December 1, 2007
  • "Disgust" (alternately titled "Mr Wu" ),The Paris Review,No. 202, Fall 2012
  • "Bettering Myself",The Paris Review,No. 204 Spring 2013
  • "Malibu",Vice,July 3, 2013
  • "The Weirdos",The Paris Review,No. 206, Fall 2013
  • "A Dark and Winding Road",The Paris Review,No. 207, Winter 2013
  • "No Place for Good People",The Paris Review,No. 209, Summer 2014
  • "Slumming",The Paris Review,No. 211, Winter 2014
  • "Nothing Ever Happens Here",Granta,Issue 131, Spring 2015
  • "The Surrogate",Vice,June 5, 2015
  • "Dancing in the Moonlight",The Paris Review,No. 214 Fall 2015
  • "The Beach Boy",The New Yorker,January 4, 2016
  • "The Locked Room",The Baffler,Spring 2016
  • "An Honest Woman",The New Yorker,October 24, 2016
  • "Love Stories",Vice,December 5, 2016
  • "Brom",Granta,Issue 139, 2017
  • "The Pornographers",Vice,March 26, 2017
  • "I Was a Public Schooler",The Paris Review,No. 233, Summer 2020
  • "The Imitations",Apartamento,No. 27, May 17, 2021

Essays

[edit]

Critical studies and reviews of Moshfegh's work

[edit]
Homesick for another world
  • Livingstone, Josephine (January–February 2017). "Ordinary monsters: Ottessa Moshfegh plots twisted fairy tales for an age of alienation".The New Republic.248(1–2): 59–60.

———————

Notes
  1. ^Short stories unless otherwise noted.

References

[edit]
  1. ^"Ottessa Moshfegh's 3 Favorite Wanderers and Weirdos".The Dinner Part Download.American Public Media. February 10, 2017.RetrievedDecember 2,2022.
  2. ^"Ottessa Moshfegh".10 Things That Scare Me.WNYC Studios. December 4, 2018.RetrievedDecember 2,2022.
  3. ^Novak, Joanna (November 3, 2014)."Ottessa Moshfegh Is the Next Big Thing, and Here Are 7 Reasons Why".Bustle.RetrievedApril 13,2015.
  4. ^abcdLevy, Ariel."Ottessa Moshfegh's Otherworldly Fiction".The New Yorker.RetrievedJuly 3,2018.
  5. ^Moshfegh, Ottessa (February 28, 2016)."Ottessa Moshfegh: I didn't set out to write Eileen as a noir novel".The Guardian(Interview). Interviewed by Kate Kellaway.RetrievedJune 1,2017.
  6. ^"Ottessa Moshfegh's Otherworldly Fiction".The New Yorker. July 2018.
  7. ^"Character Finds A Path Out of Her Personal Prison In 'Eileen'".NPR. August 15, 2015.RetrievedAugust 15,2015.
  8. ^Sullivan, James (January 24, 2017)."The moral to her stories is... not there".The Boston Globe.RetrievedMay 18,2021.
  9. ^ab"Ottessa Moshfegh | Literary Arts Program".www.brown.edu.Archived fromthe originalon May 19, 2021.RetrievedMay 19,2021.
  10. ^"Antonia Angress," Sirens & Muses, "| Reading the Room".YouTube.The Bar and the Bookcase. August 9, 2022.(See 34:04 of 39:22 in video.)
  11. ^abChristensen, Lauren (April 16, 2020)."Ottessa Moshfegh Is Only Human".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.RetrievedMay 18,2021.
  12. ^ab"Former Stegner Fellows | Creative Writing Program".stanford.edu.RetrievedOctober 18,2023.
  13. ^Phillips, Kaitlin (July 19, 2018)."Ottessa Moshfegh Plays to Win".The Cut.RetrievedApril 29,2022.
  14. ^"McGlue Otessa Moshfeg | Fence Books".www.fenceportal.org.RetrievedMay 19,2021.
  15. ^"Eileen: A Novel".Penguin Press.
  16. ^King, Lily (August 14, 2015)."'Eileen,' by Ottessa Moshfegh ".The New York Times.RetrievedAugust 14,2015.
  17. ^Laity, Paul (September 16, 2016)."Ottessa Moshfegh interview: 'Eileen started out as a joke – also I'm broke, also I want to be famous'".The Guardian.
  18. ^Sarah Shaffi (September 19, 2014)."Two from Moshfegh for Cape".The Bookseller.
  19. ^ab"My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh – caustic and acute".the Guardian.July 22, 2018.RetrievedMay 18,2021.
  20. ^"Jailbait".Granta Magazine.August 9, 2018.RetrievedSeptember 6,2019.
  21. ^abStein, Lorin (October 28, 2014)."Ottessa Moshfegh".BOMB Magazine.RetrievedOctober 18,2023.
  22. ^"Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh review – meandering murder mystery".the Guardian.October 9, 2020.RetrievedMay 18,2021.
  23. ^"Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh".Kirkus Reviews.March 30, 2022.RetrievedNovember 26,2022.
  24. ^"Causeway".Writers Guild of America East.RetrievedAugust 15,2022.
  25. ^Brunner, Raven (October 7, 2022)."'Causeway' on Apple TV+: Trailer, Cast, Premiere Date and More ".Decider.RetrievedApril 12,2024.
  26. ^"Ottessa Moshfegh | Biography, Books, Eileen, & Facts | Britannica".www.britannica.com.March 23, 2024.RetrievedApril 23,2024.
  27. ^Phillips, Kaitlin (July 19, 2018)."Ottessa Moshfegh Plays to Win".The Cut.RetrievedMarch 2,2019.
  28. ^"You're Probably Wrong About Ottessa Moshfegh".
  29. ^"The Fence Modern Prize in Prose".Past winners.Archived fromthe originalon November 24, 2015.RetrievedNovember 23,2015.
  30. ^"The Believer Book Award".The Believer.November 2015.RetrievedNovember 23,2015.
  31. ^Mark Shanahan (March 16, 2016)."Newton's Ottessa Moshfegh wins 2016 PEN/Hemingway Award".Boston Globe.RetrievedJune 22,2016.
  32. ^Treisman, Deborah (December 28, 2015)."This Week in Fiction: Ottessa Moshfegh on the Repressed Western Consciousness".The New Yorker.
  33. ^Moshfegh, Ottessa; Wood, Issy (2021).My new novel.New York, NY: Picture Books.ISBN978-1-951449-24-7.OCLC1306221572.
[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related toOttessa Moshfegh.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ottessa_Moshfegh&oldid=1225681161"