Ilana Manaster

Ilana Manaster recasts a Victorian classic through contemporary school culture in her debut fiction, drawing on work as a novelist, essayist, performer, writing teacher, and brand writer. Doreen, published by Running Press in 2016, reimagines Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray at an elite New England academy. Its central character arrives feeling awkward and isolated before a digitally altered profile picture gives her a glamorous appearance and growing social power. Manaster shifts Wilde’s men into three teenage girls and replaces the painted portrait with an image shaped by photography, social media, and peer judgment. She earned an MFA in fiction and translation from Columbia University, mentored younger writers through Girls Write Now, and has performed stand-up comedy and a one-woman show. Those varied forms support the novel’s interest in voice, performance, and constructed identity. Doreen uses a supernatural transformation to examine popularity, cruelty, secrecy, and the difference between a public image and the person it conceals.