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A woman with short brown hair looks into the distance. She is white, wearing earrings and a checked shirt. Her arms are folded.

Rebecca Perry

Rebecca Perry is an author and poet

Perry is the author of two full-length poetry collections – Beauty/Beauty and Stone Fruit – as well as four pamphlets. Her poetry has been shortlisted for awards including the TS Eliot Prize and her first collection won the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. Her first work of creative non-fiction – On Trampolining – was published in 2023.  

May We Feed the King won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2026 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026. 

Perry is from London, where she also lives. 

Rebecca Perry on May We Feed the King

‘Two characters – a woman using replica food scenes to conjure spirits in her home and a young attendant to a dying King – came to me separately, and I was writing them in two short stories. At a certain point I realised their world, in a way, was the same one and I embarked on the novel.  

I knew I wanted to write historical fiction somewhat outside of the genre and, as the book developed, I became preoccupied by questions of memory, agency and imagination. Concurrently, horrifying global events unfolding on the orders of cruel, tyrannical men began feeding into questions the book had about power and responsibility.’ 

Read the full interview here. 

Read more on Rebecca Perry

All nominated books

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
Laced with desire and longing, May We Feed the King is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful