Ottessa Moshfegh & Rachel Kushner

<p><strong>Rachel Kushner</strong> is the author of novels <em>The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers</em>, and <em>Telex from Cuba</em>, as well as a book of short stories, <em>The Strange Case of Rachel K</em>. Her career-spanning book of essays <em>The Hard Crowd</em>, solidified her place of authority amongst today’s writers, covering everything from a Palestinian refugee camp to her young life in the San Francisco music scene. Kushner has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction.</p> <p><strong>Ottessa Moshfegh</strong> is a stand-out in contemporary literature. With worlds and minds that manage to be both dark and intricate, as well as elegant and neurotic, her writing trails a unique and poignant thread of what it means to live in the now. She is the author of the novels <em>My Year of Rest and Relaxation</em> and <em>Eileen</em>, the novella <em>McGlue</em>, the short story collection <em>Homesick for Another World</em>, and she has three film adaptations in the works. Her newest book, <em>Lapvona</em>, is a medieval fantasy set in a fictional village struggling with the sordid aftermath of a plague; “part Dostoevsky, part Poe, and entirely her own” (<em>The Millions</em>), the book showcases Moshfegh at seemingly her darkest.</p>