Laura Beatty is the author of two novels, two biographies and a genre-defying book (part travel, part memoir, part fiction) about a road trip across Europe. Her first novel, Pollard, won the Authors' Club First Novel Award as well as being shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize. She lives in Bath.
A wondrous, intoxicating, exquisitely-spun, magic carpet of a book. I'll thank Laura Beatty forever for having unearthed these precious glimpses of Theophrastus, father of natural history and curator of human nature. * Isabella Tree, author of the Sunday Times-bestselling Wilding * Beautifully written and genre-defiant, Looking for Theophrastus is a must-read for anyone interested in history, philosophy, scientific observation, and that iridescent place where fiction and memory spill into each other. I absolutely loved this book. -- Annabel Lyon, Women's Fiction Prize-listed author of Consent A phantasmagorical odyssey, a time-travelling reanimation of the past as full-blooded as Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall... Made luminous with an extraordinary descriptive brilliance, what is learned through this magical, shapeshifting narrative is the preciousness not of conviction but of uncertainty, if it is shared as part of our common humanity. -- Guardian on Lost Property Enchanting... Beatty is a writer of extraordinary power -- Literary Review on Pollard A fierce and wonderful book... This is just the sort of generous, provocative novel the Booker judges should cherish -- Olivia Laing, Observer, on Pollard