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Author and poet Rebecca Perry has won the 2026 Waterstones debut fiction prize for May We Feed the King, praised as a “delicious and dream-like tale”.
Chosen from a shortlist of six novels, May We Feed the King follows a present-day curator whose job is to dress rooms in historic houses. (“When you see a replica feast scene in the great hall of an old building, I am the person who placed the pomegranates beside the pie.”) They become increasingly obsessed by the subject of their latest commission, a medieval king whose own story about his reluctance to rule unfolds in parallel.
It is “a highly wrought puzzle-box of a book which deliberately wrongfoots the reader at every turn” and “richly rewards those who approach it with curiosity”, Melissa Harrison wrote in her Guardian review.
Perry will receive £5,000 and a “promise of ongoing commitment” to her writing career. The award, voted for by Waterstones booksellers, recognises the year’s outstanding work of debut fiction across all genres.
Waterstones head of books Bea Carvalho praised Perry’s “crisp, cool prose” and described the novel as “a delicious and dream-like tale steeped in curiosity and nostalgia”.
“With a poet’s eye for detail and a keen sense of humour, Perry grapples with the slippery nature of memory and the burden of power,” Carvalho said. “Rebecca Perry is an author to be seriously excited about and we can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Perry, who is from London, has published two poetry collections, Beauty/Beauty and Stone Fruit, alongside several pamphlets and a work of creative nonfiction, On Trampolining. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize, while her debut collection won the Michael Murphy memorial prize.
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Writing We Feed the King, Perry wanted to explore “historical fiction as a genre, and how we narrate history” as well as “the capacities of loneliness and imagination, and ultimately what happens when a person defies what is expected of them, refusing to step into the tyranny of power”.
This year’s other shortlisted novels were Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, Honey in the Wound by Jiyoung Han, Under Water by Tara Menon, A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia and The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski.
Waterstones launched the prize in 2022. Previous winners include Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits. Last year’s winner was Lucy Steeds’ The Artist.
