Paul Sayer

Last updated

Paul Sayer (born 4 October 1955, [1] South Milford, near Leeds) is an English author. His first novel, The Comforts of Madness won the 1988 Whitbread Award for both Best First Novel, and Book of the Year. [2]

Contents

Life

Born in South Milford near Leeds, Sayer has lived in and around York since the age of 18. He was working as a psychiatric nurse in Clifton Hospital in York whilst writing his first prizewinning novel. [3] Drawing on his own experiences, it is a first-person account of a speechless, catatonic patient in a hospital therapy unit.[ citation needed ] Over the next few years, with his work appearing in ten languages, he went on to write five further novels, including the Booker Prize 'long-listed' 'The Absolution Game'. But the last of these, Men in Rage, published in 1999 did not sell well and as he explains to The Press (York), he became disillusioned and gave up writing, eventually ending up working as a cleaner in a school. There, he was inspired to write again, producing a novel about adolescence, Like So Totally, which was published in 2010 [3] with help from The Wingate Foundation. [4] He now lives in Haxby. [3] Following a long-standing renal complaint, he received a kidney transplant in 2011, and in 2014 his novel about the highwayman Dick Turpin, The True Adventures of Richard Turpin, was published. He has also worked as a fellow for the Royal Literary Fund at Leeds and York Universities.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen King</span> American writer (born 1947)

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Called the "King of Horror", his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections. His debut, Carrie, was published in 1974 and was followed by 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand and The Dead Zone. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the horror genre. The novellas provided the basis for the films Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil. Among the films adapted from King's novels are Carrie, Christine, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, The Green Mile, Hearts in Atlantis and It. He has published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has co-written works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King. He has also written nonfiction, notably On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas M. Disch</span> American sci-fi writer and poet (1940–2008)

Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John O'Hara</span> American novelist and short story writer (1905–1970)

John Henry O'Hara was one of America's most prolific writers of short stories, credited with helping to invent The New Yorker magazine short story style. He became a best-selling novelist before the age of 30 with Appointment in Samarra and BUtterfield 8. While O'Hara's legacy as a writer is debated, his work was praised by such contemporaries as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his champions rank him highly among the major under-appreciated American writers of the 20th century. Few college students educated after O'Hara's death in 1970 have discovered him, chiefly because he refused to allow his work to be reprinted in anthologies used to teach literature at the college level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genre fiction</span> Fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre

Genre fiction, also known as formula fiction or popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenzaburō Ōe</span> Japanese writer and Nobel Laureate (1935–2023)

Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Gerrold</span> American screenwriter and novelist (born 1944)

David Gerrold is an American science fiction screenwriter and novelist. He wrote the script for the original Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", created the Sleestak race on the TV series Land of the Lost, and wrote the novelette "The Martian Child", which won both Hugo and Nebula Awards, and was adapted into a 2007 film starring John Cusack.

Michael Angel Nava is an American attorney and writer. He has worked on the staff for the California Supreme Court, and ran for a Superior Court position in 2010. He authored a ten-volume mystery series featuring Henry Rios, an openly gay protagonist who is a criminal defense lawyer. His novels have received seven Lambda Literary Awards and critical acclaim in the GLBT and Latino communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Lethem</span> American novelist, essayist, short story writer

Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Since 2011, he has taught creative writing at Pomona College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donna Tartt</span> American novelist and writer

Donna Louise Tartt is an American novelist and essayist. Her novels are The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013), which has been adapted into a 2019 film of the same name She was included in Time magazine's 2014 "100 Most Influential People" list.

<i>Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell</i> 2004 novel by Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North–South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">F. Paul Wilson</span> American author and medical doctor (born 1946)

Francis Paul Wilson is an American medical doctor and author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and other genres of literary fiction. His books include the Repairman Jack novels—including Ground Zero, The Tomb, and Fatal Error—the Adversary cycle—including The Keep—and a young adult series featuring the teenage Jack. Wilson has won the Prometheus Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Inkpot Award from the San Diego ComiCon, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers of America, among other honors. He lives in Wall, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Reichl</span> American chef, writer, and editor

Ruth Reichl, is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and has been co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. She has won six James Beard Foundation Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashok Banker</span>

Ashok Kumar Banker is an author and screenwriter. His writing spans crime thrillers, essays, literary criticism, fiction and mythological retellings. The author of several well-received novels including a trilogy billed as "India's first crime novels in English", he became widely known for his retellings of Indian mythological epics, starting with the internationally acclaimed and best-selling eight-volume Ramayana Series. His books have sold over 2 million copies and have been published in 16 languages in 58 countries. His Epic India Library is an attempt at retelling all the myths, legends and itihasa of the Indian sub-continent in one story cycle comprising over 70 volumes.

Hillel Halkin is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Paul</span> American writer

Caroline Paul is an American writer of fiction and non-fiction.

<i>Secret Agent X</i> Pulp magazine

Secret Agent X was the title of a U.S. pulp magazine published by A. A. Wyn's Ace Magazines, and the name of the main character featured in the magazine. The magazine ran for 41 issues between February 1934 and March 1939.

Christopher Bursk was an American poet, professor and activist. He is the author of nine poetry collections, including The First Inhabitants of Arcadia published by the, praised by The New York Times which said, "Bursk writes with verve and insight about child rearing, aging parents, sexuality, his literary heroes, the sexuality of his literary heroes."

<i>A Moment in Time</i> (novel)

A Moment in Time is a 1964 novel written by English author H. E. Bates. He based the setting for most of the story on Shopswyke House, a Georgian mansion in Tangmere, West Sussex to which Bates himself was assigned.

<i>The Comforts of Madness</i> (novel) 1988 debut novel of Paul Sayer

The Comforts of Madness is the 1988 debut novel of English author Paul Sayer. It won the 1988 Whitbread Award for both Best First Novel, and Book of the Year. Written while the author was working as a psychiatric nurse in Clifton Hospital in York, and drawing on his own experiences it is a first-person account of a speechless, catatonic patient in a hospital therapy unit.

References