D. J. Taylor

David John Taylor (born 1960) is a British critic, novelist and biographer, who was born and raised in Norwich. 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. His novel Derby Day was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. 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."

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 1998: Longlisted for Booker Prize for his novel Trespass 1999: Winner of a Grinzane Cavour Prize for , 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. 2014: The Windsor Faction winner of the Sidewise Award (tied with Bryce Zabel's Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas?).