Paul Sayer (born 4 October 1955,

South Milford South Milford is a village and civil parish in the county of North Yorkshire, England. The civil parish includes the hamlet of Lumby, located south-west of the main village. The village was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire un ...

, 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.

Life

Born in

near Leeds, Sayer has lived in and around

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

since the age of 18. He was working as a psychiatric nurse in Clifton Hospital in York whilst writing his first prizewinning novel,‘I was getting rejections by the pile... no one wanted me much’ (From York Press)
Retrieved 2013-01-06. drawing on his own experiences it is a first-person account of a speechless, catatonic patient in a hospital therapy unit. 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 in to ''

The Press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

'' (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 with help from The Wingate Foundation.The Royal Literary Fund
Retrieved 2013-01-06. He now lives in Haxby. 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

*'' The Comforts of Madness'' (1988) *''Howling at the Moon'' (1990) *''The Absolution Game'' (1992) *''The Storm-bringer'' (1994) *'' The God Child'' (1996) *''Men in Rage'' (1998) *''Like So Totally'' (2010) *''The True Adventures of Richard Turpin'' (2014) *''The Perils of Sanity'' (2021)

References

External links

Pulp Pusher: PUSHED FOR ANSWERS: Paul Sayer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sayer, Paul Living people 1955 births 20th-century English novelists People from Selby District Writers from Yorkshire Costa Book Award winners English male novelists 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English novelists 21st-century English male writers