'I was born on 31 January 1979 - a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, becasue the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number nine or the sound of loud voices arguing.'
Like the character Hoffman portrayed, he can perform extraordinary maths in his head, sees numbers as shapes, colours, textures and motions, and can learn to speak a language fluently from scratch in three days. He also has a compulsive need for order and routine. He eats exactly 45 grams of porridge for breakfast and cannot leave the house without counting the number of items of clothing he's wearing. If he gets stressed or unhappy he closes his eyes and counts.
But in some ways Daniel is not all like the Rain Man. He is virtually unique amongst people who have severe autisitic disorders in being capable of living a fully-functioning, independent life. It is this incredible self-awareness and ability to communicate what it feels like to live in a totally extraordinary way that makes BORN ON A BLUE DAY so powerful.
Daniel Tammet is the subject of the award-winning television documentary, The Boy with the Incredible Brain, as well as a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Two Poets (with Les Murray) and the Kate Bush song, Pi. He is the author of nine books, including the memoir Born on a Blue Day, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; two collections of essays, Thinking in Numbers, a New Yorker recommendation, and Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing, a Booklist Editors' Choice and Listener Magazine Book of the Year; a bilingual poetry collection in English and French, Portraits, and a novel written in French, Mishenka. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Aeon and Quadrant, and his books have been translated into thirty languages. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2012, and awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, The Open University, in 2023. Daniel Tammet lives in Paris.
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet