# Victoria Princewill

Victoria Princewill FRSA (born 1990) is an English novelist who writes historical fiction. Born and raised in England, she is of Kalabari Nigerian descent. She studied English Language and Literature at Keble College, Oxford University. She is the author of In the Palace of Flowers, and The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta. She has a masters degrees in English and philosophy from Oxford University and University College London, respectively. As of 2021, she was completing another master's degree in neuroscience at King's College London.

## Writing
### In the Palace of Flowers

Princewell's debut novel, In the Palace of Flowers, was published by Cassava Republic Press.
Set in the Qajar court of Iran in 1894, In the Palace of Flowers is inspired by one of the only available first-person accounts of a black woman enslaved there. Princewill tells the story of the lesser known Trans-Saharan slave trade, a contradictory experience where the enslaved were educated; they were concubines and eunuchs with access to wealth and power. Educated but not empowered, the novel follows Jamila and Abimelech, two Abyssinians, pursuing lives of meaning whilst navigating the deadly politics in the opulent if sinister Persian court, amidst rising nationalism, just over a decade before the Persian Constitutional Revolution.
In the Palace of Flowers was named Top 5 Books of 2021 by Times' Radio by Mariella Frostrup, Best Books of 2021 by African Arguments, the Royal African Society's online magazine and was specially Recommended by Harvard.
Paul Spalding-Mulcock, reviewing it in The Yorkshire Times, declared, "Victoria Princewill's debut [...] a compelling example of historical fiction at its finest" adding that "her prose is a thing of measured, elegant beauty."
Samira Sawlani, Al-jazeera journalist and co-founder of the Bare Lit Festival said "Through beautiful prose the hugely gifted Victoria Princewill transports us to another time and world, telling a story which has one wholly absorbed. Love, danger, politics, history and art, In The Palace of Flowers is a sweepingly stunning tale that has it all."
Minna Salami praised her "captivating storytelling skills and impressive historical knowledge", describing the book as "an awe-inspiring, dynamic and powerful novel about a part of African history that few other writers have told". Calling the book "restorative" and "illuminating", she wrote that it "gripp[ed] the reader's mind with vivid and seductive language".
Writing about it for Electric Literature, Megan Benard called it a 'deeply moving and beautiful account of a woman trying to find the freedom she's always lacked' and included In the Palace of Flowers in her 11 books about misunderstood women in history.
Aincre Evans, a scholar of African feminist theory and a DPhil candidate at Oxford, listed In the Palace of Flowers as one of their 5 must-read African Feminist Books, referring to "Princewill [as having] weave[d] a beautiful plot of politics, love, resistance, and history into being."
On her impetus for writing In the Palace of Flowers, Princewill has stated that Jamila
   had written a letter that detailed her existence but only really her ancestry, her status as an enslaved woman in Iran and the men between whom she was sold. Hers was the only readily available story and the mere fact that it had survived when there was a concerted effort to erase the history of Abyssinians in Iran made me determined to do justice to what I took to be her own perseverance and to give her the humanity she had been denied.

### The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta

Princewill's second and latest novel, The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Novel, is a coming-of-age young adult novel, published by Scholastic. It is inspired by Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the multilingual African princess turned orphan who was transported to England and raised as a ward of Queen Victoria. The novel was Highly Commended for the Young Quills Award 2024, and has been longlisted for the Diverse Books Award 2024.
Regarding The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a young reader wrote, '"Overall, this book has made me realise that I have a voice, and that I should use it. It has made me feel a sense of empowerment of knowing my self worth and boundaries. It has changed me as a person; for the better."' Emily Bearn, reviewing The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta in The Daily Telegraph, called it "highly engaging", noting that, "Victoria Princewill skilfully reimagines [Bonetta's] story". Giving it 4/5 stars, Bearn added that "[Princewill]'s real skill is to create a convincing Victorian heroine to whose emotional highs and lows any modern reader will relate."

### Other

Princewill's essay for Granta, "What's in a name?" explored through British Vogue's revelation that 'Thandie' Newton, the British actress, was actually called Thandiwe Newton, and how naming works as a social experience, writing about her own family name: "Our names, and selves, function, first, in social spaces, as reflections echoed back to us." The essay was named among Literary Hub's "Best of the Literary Internet" roundup for July 6-10, 2021.
She has written for n+1, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and others.

## Publications

* In the Palace of Flowers. Cassava Republic. 2021. ISBN 978-1911115755.
* The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Novel. Scholastic. 2023. ISBN 9780702311482.