Eloghosa Osunde is a Nigerian writer, multidisciplinary maker and worldbender.
An alumna of the Lambda Literary Workshop (2019), New York Film Academy (2017) and the Caine Prize Workshop (2018), Eloghosa's writing has appeared in multiple publications including Paris Review (where they write a popular surrealist column called 'Melting Clocks'), Granta, Gulf Coast, Georgia Review, Guernica, Lithub, Catapult, Berlin Quarterly and their visual art in Vogue, The New York Times and Paper Magazine. They are a 2020 MacDowell Colony Fellow and the 2021 prose judge of Fugue Journal's annual writing contest. Profiled by Coveteur for their Class of 2021 issue — alongside other stars such as Issa Rae, Suni Lee and Quil Lemons — Eloghosa has also been featured by Elle, Them, Creative Review and Shondaland to name a few.
In creating art prints for fashion collections and book covers for authors or writing monologues for theatre festivals and building immersive mixed-media exhibitions, Eloghosa's work honors medium as an integral part of artmaking. They situate their visual art in the overlap between fiction, photography and painting. Their work tests the limits of reality (who defines it? is it singular? does it matter?) by locating protagonists in intangible, alternate realms where the granular details of time and setting melt to a blur. Eloghosa worked on Orange Culture's SS20 collection, creating art prints for the label which showed at Lagos and New York Fashion Weeks. Recently photographed by Carlijn Jacobs, styled by Camilla Nickerson and announced a VS20 artist in Victoria's Secret World Tour '23, Eloghosa's most recent work includes a custom monologue crafted for and voiced by Naomi Campbell; introduced by Gigi Hadid; and employs a combination of media to highlight their work as a text, sound and movement/performance artist channeling morphing forms. Their visual art has been exhibited across four continents so far —twice solo; selected for the New York Times Portfolio Review; for Photoville's EmergiCubes (2017) and was most recently at the National Museum in Lagos, Nigeria.
Previously with Anonymous Content, and now represented by United Talent Agency for Film/TV, Eloghosa is the writer, director, producer and sound curator of TATAFO — a music, fashion and art film loosely based on their debut novel. Awarded a 2017 Miles Morland Scholarship to write their debut work of fiction, they are the winner of the 2021 Plimpton Prize for Fiction for their short story 'Good Boy,' which was also selected by Jesmyn Ward for Best American Short Stories 2021. They are represented by the Wylie Agency and the author of VAGABONDS!, published in 2022 by Riverhead Books (US), Fourth Estate (UK) and Farafina Books (NG). So far, VAGABONDS! — a New York Times' Critics Choice — is a finalist for the Edmund White Prize For Fiction, a finalist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, a top three finalist for the VCU Capbell Prize, has been longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, longlisted for the Nota Bene Prize, is a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick, a Foyles Book Of The Month and a NoName Book Club Pick; received three starred trade reviews from Kirkus, Booklist and Publisher's Weekly, other glowing reviews from publications including Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, TLS, Guardian, Star Tribune, Autostraddle; was named a Most Anticipated Book of The Year by Entertainment Weekly, Teen Vogue, NYT, NY Mag, i-D/Vice, Harpers Bazaar, British Vogue, Vulture, Pop Sugar, An Other Magazine, Lithub, The Millions, Ms Magazine, Brittle Paper, Open Country amongst others, and repeatedly hailed as a Best Book Of The Year by publications including the New Yorker, NYT, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, Chicago Review of Books and American Library Association. VAGABONDS! has now been translated to Greek by Icaros Babassakis, and was published in paperback in two territories by March this year. Eloghosa was casting director and creative overseer of the audiobook, directed by Frances Loy and Grammy nominee Ali Muirden. A 2022 ASME awardwinner for fiction and a Future Awards nominee for Art and Literature, they are currently working on Books Four and Five as Books Two & Three gear up to be announced shortly.
When not in their work?
Eloghosa can be found on a dancefloor somewhere, moving deliberately into morning.