Portrait of my favorite author

Hi Charlie!

Today I wanted to talk about a fantastic English writer, who’s name is Daniel Tammet. 

And what a better way to make a portrait of someone, than to draw him! So here’s what he looks like 

(or at least what my drawing looks like):

                      Daniel Tammet

And there is one thing I can tell you after spending 3 hours drawing him: he has a very complex haircut.

So Daniel Tammet is born on the 31 of January in 1979, if you do the math, that means he is aged 41 now, 

in a large family on the east side of London. 

He has Asperger syndrome, savant syndrome as well as synaesthesia, which means he can see numbers

or days with shapes, color or feelings.

You maybe wondered what was represented on my profile pictures? Well here’s the answer, they are photographs

taken by Daniel Tammet’s husband, Jérome Tabet.

    Eleven                 One                    Eighty-Nine

This is what he sees when he thinks of certain numbers. 

For example, he described eighty-nine as “dark blue, the colour of a sky threatening storm; a beaded texture;

and a fluttering, whirling, downward motion I understood as ‘snow’ or, more broadly, ‘winter’.  

But he has also an image when he multiplies a number by two (for example):

Multiplication by two

I came to read first his autobiography, “Born on a blue day” which I recommend you read because he has the same 

passion I have for the number pi (yes I know it seems a bit weird, but to understand you just have to read the book).

He memorized 22 514 decimals and recited them by heart in 5 hours, 9 minutes and 27 seconds!

   

         Cover of                  Cover of his new book, “Portraits”

“Every word is a bird 

we teach to sing”

He also loves to write, as well as learning languages, he speaks 13 of them. 

In his book “Every word is a bird we teach to sing”, which is a collection of essays on language, he explains 

how the different words of languages are linked. 

He relates to the sounds they have, characterizing their shape, or consonance. He also writes poetry with numbers, 

and with words. He says the most beautiful thing he read is the word lollipop because to him, he read “1011ipop”, 

half-word half-number. And it is only one of the many fascinating examples he gives in his books.

What I think is really interesting, is that he really describes precisely what his process is, and how he sees the world. 

You understood that to me, I could write pages and pages about him, and I deeply recommend you check out his

writings! 

Here’s a link to his website if you are interested: http://danieltammet.net/index.php

Thank you very much for reading!

Astrid