About

Sarah Perry 'Enlightenment'

Part of Brighton Festival 2024

Join internationally best-selling author of the novels 'Melmoth' and 'The Essex Serpent', Sarah Perry, as she brings us 'Enlightenment', an unforgettable story of love, faith and science (due to be published in May 2024).

Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley are fellow worshippers at the Bethesda Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for more. Through their extraordinary journeys and with a growing obsession with the vanished nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva, the characters discover a richer understanding of love, of the nature of the world, and the sheer miracle of being alive.

‘Enlightenment is a complete masterwork — ambitious, crafted, truly artful’ Sarah Hall, author of 'The Electric Michelangelo'

Sarah is a winner of the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award and has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction.