Elif Batuman's first novel, The Idiot, is a New York Times Notable Book for 2017. She is also the author of The Possessed (2010), a bestselling book of comic interconnected essays about the pursuit of Russian literature. Batuman has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2010, and holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Stanford.
While at MacDowell, Batuman finished working on an essay about rental relatives in Japan and started work on an essay collection about fiction and nonfiction. In residence, she found out that The Idiot was a Pulitzer finalist and had been shortlisted for the Women's Prize in Fiction in the UK. During her 2025 residency, she was at work on her third novel.
Portrait by Emily B Frank
