Brunel Writers Talking: Sarah Perry

Brunel University of London is a very proud partner of the Nero Book Awards and the Nero New Writers Prize for unpublished writers.

As part of our support of the Nero Book Awards we have the great pleasure of inviting the four Nero Book Awards Category Winners to join us for our Writers Talking series. These events offer an opportunity to hear from the authors about the inspiration behind their award-winning books, and for all aspiring writers to learn about their approach to writing craft.

On 13th October, the winner of the Nero Book Award for Non-Fiction will be in conversation with Dr Helen Cullen about her book, Death of an Ordinary Man. Sarah Perry is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Enlightenment, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Death of an Ordinary Man and Essex Girls. She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award. Enlightenment was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024 and her other work has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Sarah won the Nero Book Award for Non-Fiction 2025 for Death of an Ordinary Man. About Death of an Ordinary Man: Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear how extraordinary he was. An unforgettable, profoundly moving account of dying, family, and care and love. Sarah will be interviewed by Dr Helen Cullen, a novelist and Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University of London. Helen is the author of two novels, The Lost Letters of William Woolf and The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually with her third, Iseult, to be published in February, 2027.

For ages 9+