From Abruzzo to the Alps, Blackpool to Beijing, these thought-provoking, exploratory, and sometimes experimental narratives from the 2025 UEA Prose Fiction MA graduates ask the big questions and leave even bigger ones in their wake. Spanning tales of organ transplants, murder trials, cultural rites of passage, talking tower blocks, malevolent gamekeepers, parasocial relationships, mysterious spa retreats, and lunar crime scenes, these voices enlighten us to the world we inhabit, its past and its possibilities.
The six pieces in this year’s collection of UEA Non-Fiction writings take us on a meandering journey. From the culinary delights of gravy to touching interactions with frequenters of an English car boot sale. They lead us through exquisite prose crafted by a savant of ‘gender aliveness’ and on to a searing memoir of a time now gone, wrought from what Maupassant termed ‘the wreckage of the aristocracy’. They include a passionate and refreshingly gentle reminder of why we’d do well to consider a plant-based diet as well as a visceral darkly tense autobiographical piece about the trauma of a transnational custody battle.
With forewords by Ali Smith and Hannah Murray, and introductions by Stephanie Bishop and Andrew Kenrick, this anthology showcases some of the finest writing talent emerging today