Our Wives Under the Sea

Reading and discussion with Julia Armfield, Lizzy Yarwood and Mikaella Clements

(c) Sophie Davidson

„Part bruisingly tender love story, part nerve-clanging submarine thriller“ (The Times), OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA is Julia Armfield’s chilling and tragic debut novel.

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

On May 31 The Reader Berlin is thrilled to invite you to OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA at Lettrétage. Julia Armfield will be in conversation with Mikaella Clements about the overlap between horror and romance, queer love stories, and the frightening depths of oceans (and marriage). The night will open with short fiction from emerging Berlin writer Lizzy Yarwood, and after the reading will be an audience Q&A followed by a book signing.

Julia Armfield is a fiction writer, based in London. Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review, Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021, Lighthouse and various other publications. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Prize 2018 and was the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. Her debut collection, SALT SLOW, was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize 2020 and was shortlisted for the London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction 2020. OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022. Her story LONGSHORE DRIFT won a Pushcart Prize in 2020.

Mikaella Clements is a writer and journalist based in Berlin. With her wife Onjuli Datta, she is the author of THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING (Grand Central Publishing, 2021).