diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 88804017e7d..ca43aa00ea0 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -720,9 +720,26 @@ static unsigned long shrink_page_list(struct list_head *page_list,
 			(PageSwapCache(page) && (sc->gfp_mask & __GFP_IO));
 
 		if (PageWriteback(page)) {
-			nr_writeback++;
-			unlock_page(page);
-			goto keep;
+			/*
+			 * memcg doesn't have any dirty pages throttling so we
+			 * could easily OOM just because too many pages are in
+			 * writeback from reclaim and there is nothing else to
+			 * reclaim.
+			 *
+			 * Check may_enter_fs, certainly because a loop driver
+			 * thread might enter reclaim, and deadlock if it waits
+			 * on a page for which it is needed to do the write
+			 * (loop masks off __GFP_IO|__GFP_FS for this reason);
+			 * but more thought would probably show more reasons.
+			 */
+			if (!global_reclaim(sc) && PageReclaim(page) &&
+					may_enter_fs)
+				wait_on_page_writeback(page);
+			else {
+				nr_writeback++;
+				unlock_page(page);
+				goto keep;
+			}
 		}
 
 		references = page_check_references(page, sc);