Sam Taylor (author)

Sam Taylor (born 1970) is a British author, translator and former pop culture correspondent for The Observer, a job he left in 2001.^[1] His first book, The Republic of Trees, was published in 2005 and received critical acclaim.^[2] His second novel, The Amnesiac, tells the story of James Purdew, a man obsessed with uncovering the events of three years of his life about which he remembers nothing.^[2] Taylor lives in Texas with his family.

Taylor, along with Laurent Binet won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2022 for his translation of Binet's novel Civilizations.^[3]

The Amnesiac

His 2007 book The Amnesiac includes the fictional main character James Purdew and a character named Tomas Ryal^[4] a Czech philosopher, playwright and poet, who is described as living from 1900 to 1973 and is famous for his controversial repudiation of the existence of memory, and also for the mysterious manner of his death. It is assumed that he was pupil of a famous Czech pedagogist, philosopher and inventor Jára da Cimrman.^[5] Ryal was given an entry at the Encyclopedia Labyrinthus.^[6]

Bibliography

• The Republic of Trees (Faber, 2005)
• The Amnesiac (Faber, 2007)
• The Island at the End of the World (Faber, 2009)
• The Ground is Burning - published as Samuel Black (Faber, 2011)^[7]

Translations

Taylor also works as a translator, from French to English. These are some of the works he has translated:

• HHhH (by Laurent Binet) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012)
• A Meal in Winter (Un repas en hiver by Hubert Mingarelli) (2012)
• The Victoria System (Hamish Hamilton, 2013)
• The truth about the Harry Quebert affair, (MacLehose Press, 2014)
• The Age of Reinvention, (L'invention de nos vies by Karine Tuil) (2015)
• Four Soldiers (Quatre Soldats by Hubert Mingarelli) (2018)
• Lullaby (Chanson Douce by Leïla Slimani) (2018)
• Adèle (Dans le jardin de l'ogre by Leïla Slimani) (2019)
• Civilizations (by Laurent Binet) (2021)
• Of Fangs and Talons (Aux animaux la guerre by Nicolas Mathieu) (2021)
• Rose Royal: A Love Story (Rose Royal by Nicolas Mathieu) (2022)

References

1. "Sam Taylor". www.amheath.com. Archived from the original on 1 May 2013.
2. Sam Taylor's top 10 books about forgetting guardian.co.uk April 18, 2007
3. "2022 Sidewise Award Winners". 3 September 2022. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
4. Lichtig, Toby (11 March 2007), "Enter a beautifully perplexing world", The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 31 May 2008^{[dead link‍]}
5. "One of the most compelling chapters is a fake biography for a fictional Czech philosopher called Tomas Ryal. (Taylor, somewhat cheekily, has "quoted" from Ryal in interview, and someone has, even more cheekily, given him a Wikipedia entry.)" Toby Lichtig Enter a beautifully perplexing world March 14, 2007 Telegraph (UK)
6. Tomas Ryal's life story at the Encyclopedia Labyrinthus
7. The Literary Tourist Interviews Sam Taylor