May We Feed the King 2026 Booker Prize Longlist

She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. A replica pie, half-eaten, perched on a small desk in the servant's quarters. A fruit bowl, filled with artificial apples, pomegranates and pears, with one piece missing. It should feel as though her subject has just left the room; the air should be alive with their energy. But in the great halls and lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur. He is a reluctant ruler, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his two older brothers. He has no hunger for power, and he resists the crown. But as winter turns to spring, whispers begin to fly around the court. Some say he is weak and will lead the country to ruin. Others call him a cuckhold, unable to satisfy his wife. And with the belief that the King is not fit for the throne, comes the idea that another might rule in his stead. May We Feed the King dances between a historical subject who resists the march of progress and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present, to offer a beguiling meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful. Acclaim for May We Feed the King Perry combines effortless exactitude with canny ambiguity to create a novel that is always as stimulating as it is enchanting. May We Feed the King is a rare achievement, I absolutely loved it. - Claire-Louise Bennett The historical fiction I have always wanted to read. Surreal and dreamlike... With an eye on the tiny, overlooked details of worlds long gone, this book felt like something hidden come to life - what is real, and what is true, and in the middle of all that, what really matters? - Jessie Burton Meditative, compelling and intricate as a puzzle box - I found myself turning it over and over, admiring and wrong footed and dazzled. - Kiran Millwood Hargrave May We Feed The King floored me with the precision of its emotional insights and eccentric view of history-as-narrative... A sort of perfect snow globe, presenting a decadent world in miniature that surprises us with the depth of its reflections on power, yearning and loneliness. - A.K. Blakemore An artfully told, dizzyingly detailed descent into the murkiness of the past. Perry's prose is needle-sharp, lush as a feast. A book to devour. - Lucy Steed A gemlike take on historical fiction, moving between a curator who creates luscious and historically accurate tableaux in historic buildings, and the life of a reluctant king. It's intricate and uncanny and beautiful. - Sophie Mackintosh I loved this book very much, I know I will return to it and anything else Perry writes, there is magic here. - Daisy Johnson May We Feed the King is exquisite, every detail, object, image, and feeling startlingly precise, illuminated from within. I entered the novel easily, and, once there, the world outside its pages faded blissfully away. It was the only place I wanted to be, the only book I wanted to be reading. - Amina Cain An arresting and daringly imaginative meditation on history, duty, masculinity and the stories we are drawn to. In gorgeously measured prose, the novel sets the historical alongside the fabular to conjure a world of intrigue and detail. - Daisy Lafarge Funny, sharply sad and full of real love. Majestic. - Ben Pester A beautifully crafted novel of mise en scènes. Perry blurs the lines between historical narrative and modern narrator, shining a light on the inescapable and murky unknowability that permeates how we tell stories of past and present. - Susannah Dickey A small gem. Enchanting and elegant... Brimful of beguiling oddness, it delights in the smallest, most subtle historical details, while delving into the emotional truths nestled in the hearts of the lonely curator and the unambitious, forlorn king. - Mail on Sunday Almost a fairytale... Perry's novel is a sly and suggestive commentary on the act of historical novel writing itself. - Financial Times Perry's style in evoking the royal household, with its intrigues, despair and backstabbing, is poetic and visceral. - Herald Scotland