Charles P. B. Taylor

Who was Charles P. B. Taylor?

Charles Plunket Bourchier Taylor was a Canadian journalist, author, essayist, and thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder.

While studying at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Charles Taylor was part of the student broadcast team on CFRC, the campus radio station. He went on to work for Reuters news service in London, England from 1955 until 1962 when he joined the staff of Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto. His career in journalism saw him become the paper's bureau chief in British Hong Kong, Peking, China, and London, England. He reported from numerous countries around the world, providing coverage of major events including the Vietnam War, the Nigerian Civil War, and the Arab–Israeli conflict. Taylor wrote Reporter in Red China and edited China Hands, books based on experiences in the Far East. The author of four books and several plays, in later years he served as Chairman of the Writers' Union of Canada.

Following his death in 1997, his widow Noreen created the Charles Taylor Foundation whose work includes the funding of the Charles Taylor Prize, a $25,000 literary prize awarded annually since 2000 to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction.