SAM TAYLOR - AUTHOR & TRANSLATOR
Novels written by
Sam Taylor
THE TWO LOVES OF SOPHIE STROM
(Faber, 2024)
Vienna, 1933: a boy's life splits in two one night when his parents’ house burns down. Max's parents survive. Hans, the orphan, is adopted by an Aryan couple and becomes a Nazi. Each boy dreams of the other. Both fall in love with the same girl. As Europe descends into war, their destinies collide and intertwine...
'The characters are wonderful - truly moving and fully human. A magnificent achievement' - Leïla Slimani,
author of Lullaby.
'It gripped my heart and imagination' - Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness.
Translated into Croatian.
THE REPUBLIC OF TREES
(Faber, 2005)
Four teenagers escape into the forest one summer, where their dreams turn to nightmares...
'Enchanting and deeply disturbing' - Observer
Translated into Italian, German, Hungarian and Korean
Adapted into the feature film All Good Children
THE AMNESIAC
(Faber, 2007)
James Purdew remembers he has forgotten three years of his life, and travels back in search of lost time...
'A clever, beautifully written examination of memory and the tricks it can play' - Sunday Express
Translated into French, Turkish and Russian.
THE ISLAND AT THE END OF THE WORLD
(Faber, 2009)
A father raises his children on an island after a great flood. They believe they are the last people on earth, until a stranger arrives...
'An extraordinary novel... meticulously written and vividly imagined' - Independent
Translated into French and Turkish.
THE GROUND IS BURNING
(Faber, 2011)
Published under the pseudonym Samuel Black, this is a historical novel set in 1502, when the lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia intersected with dramatic results...
'A heady mix of sex, violence, intrigue and treachery' -
Guardian
Translated into Serb, Portuguese and Russian.
A selection of books translated from French
by Sam Taylor
HHhH
Laurent Binet
(Harvill Secker, 2012)
Nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
'A wonderful, ambitious book and a triumph of translation' - Colum McCann
A MEAL IN WINTER
Hubert Mingarelli
(Portobello, 2013)
Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
'Praise is due to the translator, Sam Taylor, who appears
to have weighed every word with supreme care' -
Glasgow Herald
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR
Joel Dicker
(Maclehose Press, 2014)
'Sam Taylor's seamless translation... of the French novel that has taken the world by storm' - Daily Telegraph
THE HEART
Maylis de Kerangal
(FSG, 2016)
Winner of the 2017 French-American Translation Prize.
Winner of the 2018 Lewis Galantière Award.
'Stunningly well written, ravishingly translated...
Sam Taylor clearly undertook this project as an act
of love' - Lionel Shriver
THE SEVENTH FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE
Laurent Binet
(Harvill Secker, 2017)
Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.
'The translation by Sam Taylor is fluent and fast-moving; indeed, it never feels translated at all' - Literary Review
HUNTING THE TRUTH
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld
(FSG, 2018)
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award.
FOUR SOLDIERS
Hubert Mingarelli
(Granta, 2018)
Longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize.
'Mingarelli can count himself lucky in having Sam Taylor as his translator' - Irish Times
THE INVISIBLE LAND
Hubert Mingarelli
(Granta, 2020)
Winner of the 2022 C.K. Scott Moncrieff Prize.
THE SEVENTY-FIVE FOLIOS
Marcel Proust
(Harvard University Press, 2023)
'Sam Taylor's rendering is a treat in its own right, exact and fully responsive to nuance and to the rhythms of what Proust himself called "the melody of the song beneath the words"' - Christopher Pendergast
BEYOND THE DOOR OF NO RETURN
David Diop
(FSG, 2023)
Shortlisted for the 2023 National Book Award.
WATCH US DANCE
Leïla Slimani
(Faber, 2023)
'Slimani’s writing is beautifully atmospheric and has a panoramic, classic quality, excellently translated here
by Sam Taylor' - Financial Times