UEA alumna Imogen Hermes Gowar has been longlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. Imogen graduated from UEA with a BA in Archaeology, Anthropology and Art History in 2012 and from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2014, when she was the winner of the Curtis Brown Award. An early draft of her novel, which she began while completing her MA, was a finalist in the MsLexia First Novel Competition in 2015 and was shortlisted for the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award. After a ten-publisher auction, Vintage secured the rights to the novel for a six figure sum in 2017. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is supported by three partners – Baileys, Deloitte and NatWest – and is worth £30,000 to the winning author, who will be announced on 6 June. It was won last year by UEA alumna Naomi Alderman (MA 2003).
Imogen Hermes Gowar longlisted for Women’s Prize for Fiction
