THE BOOK
DEATH OF AN ORDINARY MAN BY SARAH PERRY
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 PERRY
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.
Photography © Marc Sethi
The judges said: Revealing and generous, the precise insights and delicate prose of Death of an Ordinary Man turn the death of one man into a narrative that is as universal as it is heart-wrenching. This is a book for everyone.
2025 Non-Fiction judges
