Runaway, the debut novel by UEA alumna Divya Ghelani, has been longlisted for this year’s SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women. The prize is run by Soroptimist International of Leeds in partnership with the Ilkley Literature Festival and independent publisher Peepal Tree Press. Soroptimist International is a global volunteer movement working to educate, empower and enable opportunities for women and girls. The shortlist for the prize will be announced in September and the prize awarded at the Ilkley Literature Festival in October. Divya (pictured) graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2007 and subsequently gained an MPhil in Literary Studies from the University of Hong Kong. In 2015 the University of Leicester commissioned her to research and write a historical short story, ‘An Imperial Typewriter’, which she is now adapting as a short film, and earlier this years she was selected as a Word Factory Apprentice. Runaway was the recipient of a Writing East Midlands Mentorship, a Literary Consultancy Mentorship and an Arts Council Grant. An early draft received an honorary mention in the Harry Bowling Prize for New Writing, and it was recently longlisted for the inaugural Deborah Roger’s Prize.
Divya Ghelani longlisted for SI Leeds Literary Prize
