Geoff Dyer Explained

Geoff Dyer
Birth Place:Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
Alma Mater:Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Geoff Dyer (born 1958)[1] is an English author. He has written a number of novels and non-fiction books, some of which have won literary awards.

Early life and education

Dyer was born and raised in Cheltenham, England, as the only child of a sheet metal worker father and a school dinner lady mother.[2] He was educated at the local grammar school and won a scholarship to study English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. After graduating from Oxford, he claimed unemployment benefits, and moved into a property in Brixton with other former Oxford students. He credits this period with teaching him the craft of writing.[3]

Writing career

His debut novel, The Colour of Memory, is set in Brixton in the 1980s, the decade that Dyer lived there. The novel has been described as a "fictionalization of Dyer's 20s".[4]

Dyer is the author of the following novels: The Colour of Memory (1989), The Search (1993), Paris Trance (1998) and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (2009). He wrote a critical study of John Berger – Ways of Telling – and two collections of essays: Anglo-English Attitudes and Working the Room. A selection of essays from these collections entitled Otherwise Known as the Human Condition was published in the U.S. in April 2011 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Dyer has written the following non-fiction titles: But Beautiful (on jazz); The Missing of the Somme (on the memorialization of the First World War); Out of Sheer Rage (about D. H. Lawrence); Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It; The Ongoing Moment (on photography); Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker); and Broadsword Calling Danny Boy (about Brian G. Hutton's 1968 film Where Eagles Dare). In 2019, Out of Sheer Rage was listed by Slate as one of the 50 greatest nonfiction works of the past 25 years.[5] He is the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney.

His 2014 book Another Great Day at Sea chronicles Dyer's experiences on the, where he was writer-in-residence for two weeks. It has been described by David Finkel as

"what we've all come to expect from Geoff Dyer—another great book. I loved everything about it. It's brilliantly observed, beautifully written, incisive, funny, and filled with stirring truths about life and the value of service."
Billy Collins said:
"Geoff Dyer has managed to do again what he does best: insert himself into an exotic and demanding environment (sometimes, his own flat, but here, the violent wonders of an aircraft carrier) and file a report that mixes empathetic appreciation with dips into brilliant comic deflation. Welcome aboard the edifying and sometimes hilarious ship Dyer."

Dyer was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2005.[6] In 2014, he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

In 2013, he served as the Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor[7] at the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program. He now teaches in the PhD program at the University of Southern California.

Personal life

Dyer is married to Rebecca Wilson, chief curator at Saatchi Art, Los Angeles. He currently lives in Venice, California.[8] In March 2014, Dyer said he had had a minor stroke earlier in the year, shortly after moving to live in Venice.[9]

Awards and honours

Publications

Books

Critical studies and reviews of Dyer's work

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2023-09-20. Geoff Dyer - National Portrait Gallery. www.npg.org.uk.
  2. Web site: McMahon. James. 2021-05-08. Geoff Dyer: 'I am what you might describe as chippy'. 2021-06-06. The Guardian. en.
  3. Web site: Gissa job! Writers on the dole. The Guardian. August 2015.
  4. Web site: Teicher. Jordan. 2014-06-11. The One and Only Geoff Dyer. 2021-06-06. LA Review of Books. en.
  5. Web site: Miller. Dan Kois, Laura. 2019-11-18. The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years. 2020-12-03. Slate Magazine. en.
  6. http://www.rslit.org/people Royal Society of Literature: Current RSL Fellows (Accessdate 03-06-13)
  7. Web site: Geoff Dyer. uiowa.edu.
  8. News: Geoff Dyer . I am What I am: Geoff Dyer . 29 March 2009 . . 2011-05-09 . London.
  9. Dyer, Geoff Diary London Review of Books, Vol. 36 No. 7 – 3 April 2014.
  10. Web site: 2019-05-07. Books / The prize winners of 1992. 19 December 1992. The Independent.
  11. Web site: 2019-05-07. Society of Authors' Awards. societyofauthors.org. 7 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190507122452/https://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Fiction/Somerset-Maugham/Past-winners. dead.
  12. Web site: Finalist citation for National Book Critics Circle Award . National Book Critics Circle . 1998 . 9 September 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151018063346/http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/ . 18 October 2015 . dead .
  13. Web site: 2019-05-07. Lannan Foundation. Lannan Foundation.
  14. News: John. Ezard. 2019-05-07. Rowling set to win first adult book prize. The Guardian. 14 January 2004. 0261-3077.
  15. News: 2019-05-07. Up Front. The New York Times. 28 October 2007. 0362-4331.
  16. Web site: 2019-05-07. Royal Society of Literature » Geoff Dyer. rsliterature.org.
  17. Web site: 2006 Infinity Award: Writing . . 2 September 2016 . 28 April 2006.
  18. Web site: Alex. Bilmes. 2019-05-07. Geoff Dyer: Writer of the Year. British GQ. 2 September 2009.
  19. News: Alison. Flood. 2019-05-07. Geoff Dyer wins Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. The Guardian. 29 May 2009. 0261-3077.
  20. Web site: Prize Citation for Edmund de Waal . Windham–Campbell Literature Prize . 24 February 2015 . 25 February 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150226050843/http://windhamcampbell.org/2015/winner/edmund-de-waal . 26 February 2015 . dead .
  21. On Tarkovsky's movie Stalker
  22. Web site: 2021-02-04. Sean O'Hagan (journalist). Sean. O'Hagan. The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand by Geoff Dyer review – supremo of the 60s sidewalk. 12 March 2018. The Guardian.
  23. Web site: Nonfiction Book Review: The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings by Geoff Dyer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28 (272p) ISBN 978-0-374-60556-8. 2022-02-24. PublishersWeekly.com. en.

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