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Benjamin Taylor

Biography

Benjamin Taylor

Benjamin Taylor's memoir, THE HUE AND CRY AT OUR HOUSE, won the 2017 Los Angeles Times/Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography and was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice; his PROUST: The Search was named a Best Book of 2015 by Thomas Mallon in The New York Times Book Review and by Robert McCrum in The Observer (London); and his NAPLES DECLARED: A Walk Around the Bay was named a Best Book of 2012 by Judith Thurman in The New Yorker.

He is also the author of two novels: TALES OUT OF SCHOOL, winner of the 1996 Harold Ribalow Prize, and THE BOOK OF GETTING EVEN, winner of a 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award, as well as a book-length essay, INTO THE OPEN. He edited SAUL BELLOW: Letters, named a Best Book of 2010 by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times and Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post, and Bellow’s THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT: Collected Nonfiction, also a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His edition of the collected stories of Susan Sontag, DEBRIEFING, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in November 2017. His latest memoir is HERE WE ARE: My Friendship with Philip Roth.

Taylor is a founding faculty member in the New School’s Graduate School of Writing and teaches also in the Columbia University School of the Arts. He is a past fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and serves as president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation.

Benjamin Taylor

Books by Benjamin Taylor

Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth
by Benjamin Taylor - Memoir, Nonfiction

HERE WE ARE is Benjamin Taylor's unvarnished portrait of his best friend and one of America's greatest writers. Philip Roth's place in the canon is secure, but less clear is what the man himself was like. Here, we see Roth as a mortal man, experiencing the joys and sorrows of aging, reflecting on his own writing, and doing something we all love to do: passing the time in the company of his closest friend. An ode to friendship and its wondrous ability to brighten our lives in unexpected ways, Taylor’s memoir pays tribute to a friend in the way that only a writer can.

There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction
written by Saul Bellow, edited by Benjamin Taylor - Collection, Nonfiction

The year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellow’s birth, the 10th anniversary of his death, and the publication of Zachary Leader’s much anticipated biography. Bellow, a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner and the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, has long been regarded as one of America’s most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of the acclaimed SAUL BELLOW: LETTERS, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer.

Saul Bellow: Letters
edited by Benjamin Taylor - Nonfiction

Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a 20th-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages.

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