Diana Athill facts for kids

Diana Athill OBE (born December 21, 1917 – died January 23, 2019) was a talented British writer and editor. She worked with many famous authors of the 20th century at a publishing company called Andre Deutsch Ltd in London.

Who Was Diana Athill?

Her Early Life and Education

Diana Athill was born in Kensington, London, during World War I. Her father was Major Lawrence Francis Imbert Athill, and her mother was Alice Katharine. Diana had a brother named Andrew and a sister named Patience.

She grew up at Ditchingham Hall in Norfolk, a large country house that belonged to her mother's family.

In 1939, Athill finished her studies at Lady Margaret Hall, which is part of the University of Oxford. During World War II, she worked for the BBC.

Her Career in Publishing

After the war, Diana Athill helped her friend André Deutsch start a publishing company called Allan Wingate. Five years later, in 1952, she helped found a new publishing company named after him, Andre Deutsch Ltd.

She worked closely with many well-known authors. Some of these included Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Margaret Atwood, and V. S. Naipaul. She helped them prepare their books for publication.

Athill retired from Deutsch in 1993 when she was 75 years old. She had worked in publishing for over 50 years! Even after retiring, she continued to share her experiences through her own books.

Diana Athill's Books

Diana Athill also became a successful author herself. Her first book was a collection of short stories called An Unavoidable Delay (1962). She also wrote a novel, Don't Look at Me Like That (1967).

She became best known for her memoirs, which are books about her own life experiences. Her first memoir was Instead of a Letter (1963). She wrote about her childhood in Yesterday Morning (2002). She also translated books from French into English.

In 2004, she appeared on a radio show called Desert Island Discs. She chose Haydn's The Creation as her favorite music and Thackeray's Vanity Fair as her favorite book.

In 2008, her memoir about growing older, Somewhere Towards The End, won the Costa Book Award. She also received the National Book Critics Circle Award for the same book in 2009.

Awards and Recognition

For her contributions to literature, Diana Athill was honored with the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009.

In 2010, she was featured in a BBC documentary called Growing Old Disgracefully. In 2013, she was even listed as one of the 50 best-dressed people over 50 by The Guardian newspaper.

Later in her life, she published more books, including Instead of a Book: Letters to a Friend (2011), which was a collection of letters she wrote to a poet named Edward Field. She also published Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter (2015) and A Florence Diary (2016).

Her Later Life

Diana Athill moved into a special home for active older people in north London in 2009. She found it to be a comfortable and worry-free place to live.

She passed away at a hospice in London on January 23, 2019, at the age of 101, after a short illness.

Her nephew, Philip Athill, is an art historian and manages an art dealership and gallery.

Images for kids

• Athill in 2004

See also

In Spanish: Diana Athill para niños