Every year, there is a debut novelist who shoots to fame, appearing on bestseller lists and prize lists alike. This year is Rebecca Perry’s year.
Earlier in 2026, she was announced as one of the Observer’s Debut Novelists for the year. She has gone from strength to strength since then, winning the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for her debut novel May We Feed the King in July, and now she is in the running for the Booker Prize.
A new literary star ascending to astronomical heights, Perry took time to sit down with The Mirror’s resident book critic Dr Aimée Walsh to talk about her success, writing in times of crisis, and about political figures who wield hollow power. She also discussed how her background as a world-leading trampolinist informs her creative work.
In May We Feed the King, a curator is commissioned to dress a room in a historic building for an anniversary celebration, and becomes obsessed with making the room feel like the occupants have just nipped out. They trawl through food replica websites seeking the perfect formation of plastic that will look delectable and believable to a visitor.
In a separate timeline – which is purposefully left unclear as to which particular year it is set – the reader is introduced to a reluctant medieval king, who cries when decisions are to be made. Both the curator and the king lose their appetite for food and for their roles they are to play in society.
Each chapter is presented in narrative shards, short and sharp. Easily digestible for the reader. It makes the reading experience a propulsive one – as the story zips along on unsteady ground, keeping the reader guessing about the histories we are told and whether, in fact, any of it is worth placing stock in.
Speaking with the Mirror, Perry said her background as a competitive trampolinist ensured she had looked at the world in different ways to those with their feet on the ground. And once this is achieved, how can a person go back to viewing the world linearly, flatly?
Perry began trampolining at the age of 3, being coached by a family friend, travelling up and down the country. She even went to the World Games in Canada when she was ten years old to compete. She says: “At 10 years of age, I was the 11th best trampolinist in my age group in the world.”
She said: “I did spend more than a decade of my life in strange angles in the air looking at the door for a certain move to know when to twist. I do have lots of [memories] of seeing a person coming through a door as I’m [at] a weird 75-degree angle upside down.”
This strange view on the world feeds into her novel, making it all the more compelling. Judging panels on numerous prizes agree – from the Booker Prize to the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.
But was any of this expected for the new novelist? No, she tells The Mirror. She was initially delighted with being on the longlist of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, which is not publicised. She said that it felt like a game of probability – that the odds were stacked against her, a numbers game.
Reasoning with herself, Perry felt these odds, coupled with her assessment that her debut novel is “a bit too weird a book to be honest” didn’t instil her with assurance that she had it in the bag. So she was surprised when she went through to the shortlist and ultimately won.
“I did not at all [expect to win],” she said. “It would be mad if you did, wouldn’t it? If you were just standing there expecting them to hear your name.”
Then came the life-changing phone call all novelists dream of: from Gaby Wood, the Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, telling her the news that she is currently longlisted for one of the most prestigious awards in literature, the Booker Prize. Perry said that receiving that call was “particularly unbelievable” as it “changes things completely” for writers.
Historical fiction
It would be remiss to discuss historical fiction without mentioning Hilary Mantel, the two-time Booker prize winner for the Wolf Hall trilogy. Mantel, during one of her BBC Reith Lectures, described visiting historic buildings and being overcome with the feeling that she wanted to lie down in the closet of a man – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey – who would become a character in her award-winning books.
Perry felt something similar when she visited Ham House, in Richmond. In this building, she had a “very strong connection” with the past, that she describes as feeling “really weird or [like] something different is happening in my brain.” She adds: “I remember saying out loud to one of my friends: ‘So I think I’d like to write about this kind of thing, this kind of set dressing and replica stuff. [It] did something to me.'”
While this novel is a work of historical fiction, it is rooted in contemporary world politics. Perry explains: “I was interested in absolute power and it being given to one person and how they respond to it and what happens when they fail to. I was writing the bulk of the book at the height of the genocide in Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan. All of these things were happening. The TV and the internet was constantly [showing] absolute horror.”
She grapples with how, and if, an ordinary civilian can hold power. In relation to the genocide in Gaza, she said: “As a society, everything we’ve been told to believe about the power we had and how we could make a difference, all of that was just being shown up as an absolute farce. We had no power whatsoever to do anything in the face of absolute horror. It was just all sitting with this terrible small collection of people.”
She adds: “The book would have probably been very different if I hadn’t been writing at that particular period in time.”
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry is out now.
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