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D. J. Taylor (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

D. J. Taylor

BornDavid John Taylor
1960 (age 63–64)
United Kingdom
Occupation
  • Critic
  • novelist
  • biographer
LanguageEnglish
Alma materSt John's College, Oxford
GenreLiterary criticism, fiction, biography

David John Taylor FRSL (born 1960)[1] is a British critic, novelist and biographer, who was born and raised in Norfolk.[2]

After attending school in Norwich, he read modern history at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his biography of George Orwell.[3] His novel Derby Day was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.[4] He was previously a member of the Norwich Writers' Circle.

He has contributed to The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, The Spectator, Private Eye and Literary Review, among other publications.

Assessments

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Theodore Dalrymple, reviewing Taylor's Who Is Big Brother?: A Reader's Guide to George Orwell, concluded that "It deals most sensitively with Orwell's multiple ambiguities without trying to fit them into a Procrustean bed. It informs, enlightens, and entertains. It restores one's faith in the value of criticism."[5]

Personal life

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Taylor, who was born in Norwich, lives there with his wife, the fiction writer Rachel Hore, and their three children.[3]

Works

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  • Great Eastern Land: from the notebooks of David Castell (1986), novel
  • A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s (1989)
  • Other People: Portraits From The 90's (1990), with Marcus Berkmann
  • Real Life (1992), novel
  • After the War: The Novel and England since 1945 (1993)
  • English Settlement (1996), novel
  • After Bathing at Baxter's (1997), short stories
  • Trespass (1998), novel
  • Thackeray (1999), biography
  • The Comedy Man (2002), novel
  • Pretext 6: Punk of Me (2002), guest editor
  • Orwell: The Life (2003), biography
  • Kept (2006), novel[1]
  • On The Corinthian Spirit: The Decline of Amateurism In Sport (2006)
  • Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918–1940 (2007)
  • Ask Alice (2009), novel[1]
  • At the Chime of a City Clock (2010), novel[1]
  • Derby Day (2011), novel[1]
  • Secondhand Daylight (2012), novel
  • The Windsor Faction (2013), novel
  • Wrote for Luck (2015), stories. Galley Beggar Press
  • The New Book of Snobs (2016)
  • The Prose Factory: Literary Life in England since 1918 (2016)
  • Rock and Roll is Life (2018), novel
  • Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature, 1939–1951 (2019), collective biography
  • Orwell: The New Life (2023), biography
  • Who Is Big Brother?: A Reader's Guide to George Orwell (2024)

Prizes and honours

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "D. J. Taylor". Djtaylor.co.uk.
  2. ^ Taylor, D. J. (21 May 2022). "'Norfolk. Merely typing the word on a computer screen gives me a little twinge of satisfaction': D. J. Taylor on how Norfolk has inspired him for a lifetime". Country Life. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
  3. ^ a b Wroe, Nicholas (30 August 2013). "DJ Taylor: 'I set out with every intention of just being a novelist. But then I got diverted …'". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  4. ^ "Man Booker Prize 2011 longlist". The Telegraph. 26 July 2011. Archived from the original on 25 September 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  5. ^ Dalrymple, Theodore (30 April 2024). "Orwell's Arresting Ambiguities". Law & Liberty. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  6. ^ News | The Man Booker Prizes Archived 18 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ "2014 Sidewise Award Finalists". Locus. 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
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