Imogen Hermes Gowar

Imogen Hermes Gowar is a British author whose debut novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (2018), won the Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Set in eighteenth-century London, the novel follows a merchant whose fortunes are upended after he acquires what is purported to be a genuine mermaid. Gowar's fiction blends historical detail with a taste for the uncanny, examining questions of commerce, desire, and belief in Georgian England. The novel's critical success established her as a notable new voice in contemporary British historical fiction.