YARA RODRIGUES FOWLER, who read English at Wadham (2011-14), was recently named one of Granta's best young British writers in their once-in-a-decade list.
Yara grew up in South London. She writes across genres about unruly women, revolutionary desire, and vivacious, often messy, entanglements of the personal and the political. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019. It was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 and the Desmond Elliott Prize 2019. Yara was named one of The Observer’s ‘hottest-tipped’ debut novelists of 2019 and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019.
Yara’s second novel, there are more things, was nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2022 and Goldsmiths Prize 2022. As a work in progress, there are more things received the John C Laurence Award from the Society of Authors and was shortlisted for the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award 2019. It was one of the Sunday Times, BBC Culture and New Statesman’s books of the Year. It has been published in Germany, as 'Zwischen Himmel und Erde', translated by Maria Meinel.
She is currently co-writing a play called The Conference of the Trees with Majid Adin and Connie Treves, based on the poems by members of the Change The Word poetry collective at Good Chance Theatre. The Conference of the Trees was selected for the Writers' Guild of Great Britain's inaugural New Play Commission Scheme. Her next book, a work in progress, will be a literary account of the life of Princess Diana through a formally experimental Marxist, feminist, and anti-imperialist lens.
Yara is also a part-time climate justice organiser.
Yara will feature in St Hilda's 'Imagining the Impossible' event on 14 June at 2-4pm at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building. The in-person event features 'Four Writers on Feminist Futures'. The writers are all award-winning and under/around 30 years old. They'll be reading from their work and discussing how the radical aspects of their practice helps us to think about better futures beyond now. You can book your free ticket via the St Hilda's website.
