Leilani's story of Edie, a broke 23-year-old black woman who gets involved with a wealthy older white couple, cuts to the quick of the often grim realities of being young and black in the US today. But it's wincingly funny, too . . . Leilani's prose mesmerises; you go with her, wherever she decides to take you . . . A remarkable portrait of the artist as a young woman. Observer
Raven Leilani's work has been published in Granta, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and The Cut, among other publications. Leilani received her MFA from NYU and is currently the Axinn Foundation Writer in Residence there. Luster is her first novel.