D. J. Taylor (writer)

Not to be confused with D. J. Taylor (soccer).

For other people named David Taylor, see David Taylor (disambiguation).

D. J. Taylor FRSL
Born	David John Taylor 1960 (age 64–65) United Kingdom
Occupation	Critic novelist biographer
Language	English
Alma mater	St John's College, Oxford
Genre	Literary criticism, fiction, biography

David John Taylor FRSL (born 1960) ^[1] is a British critic, novelist and biographer, who was born and raised in Norwich. ^[2] He read modern history at St John's College, Oxford.

He has contributed to The Daily Telegraph , The Guardian , The Independent , New Statesman , The Spectator , Private Eye and Literary Review , among other publications. He lives in Norwich with his wife, the fiction writer Rachel Hore, and their three children. ^[3] He was previously a member of the Norwich Writers' Circle.

Taylor received the Whitbread Award for his 2003 biography of George Orwell. ^[3] His novel Derby Day was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. ^[4] 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]

Works

• 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

• 1998: Longlisted for Booker Prize for his novel Trespass
• 1999: Winner of a Grinzane Cavour Prize for L'accordo Inglese, the Italian translation of his novel English Settlement
• 2003: Winner of the Whitbread Prize for biography for Orwell: The Life
• 2011: Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his novel Derby Day. ^[6]
• 2014: The Windsor Faction winner of the Sidewise Award (tied with Bryce Zabel's Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas?). ^[7]

References

1. "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. 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.

External links

• Official website Archived 2019-04-24 at the Wayback Machine