Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster born in 1966.

Rayner is the son of the journalist Claire Rayner. He joined The Observer newspaper after graduating from Leeds University in 1988 where he was editor of the student newspaper. He serves as the Observer's restaurant critic. He has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines such as GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and Granta. In 1992 he was named Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards.

His first novel The Marble Kiss published in 1994 was shortlisted for the Authors' Club of Great Britain First Novel Award, and his second Day of Atonement published in 1998 for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. His first work of non-fiction Stardust Falling was published in 2002 and was followed by his third novel The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow, in 2004.

In 1997 he won a Sony Radio Award for Papertalk, BBC Radio Five Live's magazine programme about the newspaper business, which he presented.

He regularly appears on Masterchef as one of the food critics.

Books

Fiction

• Day of Atonement (1998), ISBN 0-552-99783-8
• The Apologist (2004), ISBN 1-55278-416-9
• The Oyster House Seige (2007), ISBN 1-84354-566-7

Non-Fiction

• The Marble Kiss (1994), ISBN 0-333-62134-4
• The Man Who Ate The World (2008), ISBN 0-80508-669-2

Reviews

• Review of The Man Who Ate The World at Letters On Pages

External links

• Jay's agency bio
• Gourmet Traveller interview "A Bite With the Man Who Ate The World"
• The Man Who Ate The World interview at Letters On Pages