The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, the debut novel by UEA alumna Imogen Hermes Gowar, has been shortlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction, which is worth £30,000 to the winner. 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. It was also recently longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. After a ten-publisher auction, Vintage secured the rights to the novel for a six figure sum in 2017. The winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on 6 June. It was won last year by UEA alumna Naomi Alderman (MA 2003).
Imogen Hermes Gowarshortlisted for Women’s Prize for Fiction
