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Born in Essex, Sarah Perry, 46, studied English at Anglia Polytechnic University and worked as a civil servant before taking a PhD in creative writing and the gothic at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her first novel, After Me Comes the Flood, was published in 2014. Her second, The Essex Serpent, was Waterstones Book of the Year in 2016, a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and adapted for television. Her other works include Melmoth and Enlightenment, the latter of which was longlisted for the Booker prize, and Death of an Ordinary Man, which won the 2025 Nero Non-Fiction Book award. She is married and lives in Norfolk.
What is your greatest fear?
Not being loved.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I’m monstrously judgmental. It’s like talking to the pope.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Lateness.
What is your most treasured possession?
I have a gold bangle made from jewellery collected from both my husband’s family and my family, and I never take it off.
Describe yourself in three words
Impatient, ambitious and happy.
What would your superpower be?
The ability to dance. I cannot dance and when I see people who can, they might as well be flying.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
A woman hits an age where even if she’s been blond all her life she gets dark hairs on her chin. I wake up in the morning and there are bristles.
If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
Hilary Mantel. She was my queen.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Olivia Colman.
What is your most unappealing habit?
I still have a habit of wiping my nose on my sleeve.
What scares you about getting older?
I understand that you lose the register of hearing that enables you to hear crickets, and when I can’t hear crickets in the summer I’ll be really sad.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My husband, Rob, and writing are exactly level pegging.
What does love feel like?
Like it’s worth being alive.
Have you said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?
All the time.
Which living person do you most despise, and why?
I don’t despise anybody but when I think about Boris Johnson, Trump and Farage I feel a kind of appalled pity that you could squander your life on wickedness and stupidity.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
My A-level results in 1998. I flunked my history A-level and lost my place at Cambridge. It broke my heart for years; now I’m really glad, because I pull out the whole “I went to a polytechnic” thing. But at the time for a teenager who was rather pleased with herself, it was absolutely devastating.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something significant?
I am so obdurate I do not change my mind.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Every single morning the sun comes up and you get to try again.
What happens when we die?
I have never been able to become an atheist and, even though I know it is completely irrational and cannot be backed up, I think when I die I’m going to glory.
