Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Jul 24

Sarah Dillon Deciphers Turing’s 1,000-Word Story, Broadening View of Computing Pioneer

Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Jul 24

Sarah Dillon Deciphers Turing’s 1,000-Word Story, Broadening View of Computing Pioneer

Q: What did Alan Turing write after his conviction that challenges his tragic hero image?

After his 1952 conviction, Alan Turing wrote an unfinished six-page short story, **“Pryce’s Buoy,”** and it is this piece that most clearly challenges his tragic-hero image. According to Cambridge professor Sarah Dillon, who transcribed and studied the manuscript, the story was likely written in late 1952 or early 1953. It is an autofictional work centered on a scientist, Alec Pryce, and a working-class sex worker, Ron Miller, as they navigate the uncertainty of a possible sexual encounter. Dillon argues the story shows Turing as “playful, funny, cheeky, literary, and someone who really liked sex,” rather than the cold, isolated and tortured figure often presented in popular culture. The manuscript is especially significant because it was written after Turing’s prosecution for homosexuality. Rather than suggesting a man crushed into silence, it points to someone still creatively engaged, sexually self-aware and capable of humor and emotional nuance. Dillon says it reveals a Turing whose “sexual spirit was not dampened,” directly pushing back against the one-dimensional portrayal reinforced by works such as *The Imitation Game*. In short, the key text is **“Pryce’s Buoy,”** an unfinished short story that recasts Turing as more joyful, complex and defiantly alive than the standard tragic narrative suggests.

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 24

Sarah Dillon has transcribed Alan Turing’s roughly 1,000-word unfinished story “Pryce’s Buoy,” turning a manuscript long considered essentially illegible into a text the public can now read.
Six handwritten pages preserved in a Cambridge archive end abruptly with the words “Ron wouldn’t,” and Dillon said any remaining pages have been lost.
Earlier books and biographies had transcribed only snippets, leaving Turing’s full literary work largely known to specialist academics rather than wider audiences.
Dillon said the transcription helps recover a more playful, creative image of Turing, challenging a public portrait shaped mainly by his codebreaking, computing legacy and “The Imitation Game.”