For someone who was in his sixties before getting his first book published, British author Paul Torday made up for his late start with impressive productivity. After the international success of his 2007 debut novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, he wrote another six books, leading some to wonder why he was so driven. The answer came this week when Torday succumbed to cancer, having been diagnosed soon after his literary debut. He had kept his condition secret to all but those closest to him.
His passion for writing had been recognised early – he won his first literary award when he was 16 – but like many writers with family obligations, he waited until the financial security of retirement to see if he could make it as a novelist. The 500,000 sales of his debut novel, and its later adaptation into a film, showed he could.
But it was his career that provided the crucial plot elements that made his writing so compelling. As an oil and gas engineer, he was working in Oman when he came up with the idea of a salmon-fishing sheikh.
All this changes the perceptions of Torday’s career, in which his self-described race to create what he called “the ultimate story” turned out to be a race against time.
