Julia Armfield
Julia Armfield | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 July 1990 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Alma mater | Royal Holloway, University of London (MA) |
| Years active | 2019–present |
| Notable works | Our Wives Under the Sea |
| Notable awards | Polari Prize 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea |
| Spouse |
Rosalie Bower (m. 2023) |
| Website | |
| juliaarmfield | |
Julia Armfield (born 26 July 1990) is an English author. She is known for her novels Our Wives Under the Sea (2022) and Private Rites (2023).
Early life and education
[edit | edit source]Armfield was born on 26 July 1990[1] in London[2] and raised in Cobham, Surrey. She attended Lady Eleanor Holles School.[3] Her mother was a stage manager and her father worked in London. Her brother Nicholas Armfield is an actor at the Royal Shakespeare Company.[4]
Armfield earned a master's degree in Victorian art and literature from Royal Holloway, University of London.[2][5] Her thesis was on "teeth, hair, and nails in the Victorian imagination."[4][5] She has cited H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King as influences.[6]
Career
[edit | edit source]After attending a Curtis Brown creative writing course,[7] Armfield began writing short stories while working as an education manager at Inner Temple. After being shortlisted for the Deborah Rogers prize, her short story "The Great Awake" won the White Review prize in 2018.[4] Her first collection of short stories, Salt Slow, was published in 2019. It featured "The Great Awake", as well as eight other horror stories with a repeated focus on female adolescence as body horror.[6]
Our Wives Under the Sea, Armfield's debut novel, was published in 2022. It follows Miri and her wife Leah, a marine biologist who displays strange symptoms after returning from a deep sea exploration.[8] The novel won the Polari Prize and was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.[9]
Armfield's second novel Private Rites is loosely based on King Lear. It follows three sisters struggling to cope with their father's death amidst a climate crisis characterized by constantly rising flood waters.[10] The Guardian called the novel "brilliantly audacious", praising how "it never commits to an apocalyptic vision, even as the world it depicts becomes cartoonishly apocalyptic."[11]
On 26 June 2025, Fourth Estate announced it had acquired two further books by Armfield. The first, Up To the Light, described as "the story of two climbers, Liam and Petal, and their ill-fated attempt to conquer a previously unclimbed route in the Swiss Alps"[12] is expected to be released in spring 2027.[13]
Awards
[edit | edit source]| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | The Great Awake | The White Review Short Story Prize | Short Story | Won | [14][15] |
| 2022 | Our Wives Under the Sea | Goodreads Choice Awards | Debut | Nominated | |
| Fiction | Nominated | ||||
| 2023 | Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award | — | Nominated | ||
| Kitschies | Debut ("Golden Tentacle") | Won | [16] | ||
| Lambda Literary Award | Lesbian Fiction | Shortlisted | |||
| Polari Prize | — | Won | [9] | ||
| 2025 | Private Rites | Climate Fiction Prize | Longlisted | [17] |
Bibliography
[edit | edit source]- Salt Slow (2019, Picador)
- Our Wives Under the Sea (2022, Picador)
- Private Rites (2024, Fourth Estate)
References
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- Living people
- 21st-century English novelists
- 21st-century English people
- 21st-century English women
- 21st-century English women writers
- 21st-century English short story writers
- English women novelists
- English short story writers
- English women short story writers
- 1990 births
- Alumni of Royal Holloway, University of London
- English LGBTQ writers
- People from Cobham, Surrey
- Writers from Surrey
- People educated at Lady Eleanor Holles School
- 21st-century British women novelists
- English writer stubs