Wikipedia

D. J. Taylor (writer)

Not to be confused with D. J. Taylor (soccer).
For other people named David Taylor, see David Taylor (disambiguation).

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

D. J. Taylor

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

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.[6]

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. ^ 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. ^ Cite error: The named reference autogenerated1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ News | The Man Booker Prizes Archived 18 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "2014 Sidewise Award Finalists". Locus. 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
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