Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Sarah Perry, the internationally bestselling author of the novels Melmoth (Serpent’s Tail, 2018), The Essex Serpent (Serpent’s Tail, 2016), and After Me Comes the Flood (Serpent’s Tail, 2014), and the non-fiction Essex Girls (Serpent’s Tail, 2020). She is a winner of the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Awards and the British Book Awards, and 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 the Chancellor of the University of Essex, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her essays have been published in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Observer, and the London Review of Books. She has been the UNESCO City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague, and the Writer in Residence at the Savoy Hotel in London. Her no. 1 bestseller The Essex Serpent was adapted for television starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston in the lead roles. Her new novel, Enlightenment, will be published by Jonathan Cape (UK) and Harper Collins (US) in May 2024.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.