Diana Athill

A few days ago, I was very pleased to hear that Diana Athill's book "Somewhere Towards the End" (Granta, 2008) had just won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Athill, who is English and a longtime literary editor, is now 92 years old. We are rarely given the gift of the viewpoint of someone of her years on what it is like to be aging, and more important, on what it is like to be alive and thriving at an advanced age. She said in an interview in the Guardian (1/5/09), "I think the fact that I'm in my 90s and still compos mentis, and able to write and have a nice time, is encouraging to people." I'm sure this is true; in addition, though, people read her work, and give her awards for it, because she is such a good writer. As her editor at Granta, Ian Jack, said, reading her is "like having someone speak into your ear, someone humane and self-amused and wise" (Guardian, 10/31/09). This book about her old age is her sixth memoir; the most well-known three were written in the author's 80s. In addition to "Somewhere Towards the End," they are "Stet: A Memoir" (Granta, 2000) about her long career as an editor, but also including much about her personal life, and "Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhood" (Granta, 2002), whose title is self-explanatory. In all three memoirs (and these are the three that I have read; I plan to seek out the earlier ones as well), Athill is remarkably and straightforwardly candid, including about her love life and affairs. She is also quite modest about her talents, despite being a leading editor and then consultant with the publisher Andre Deutsch for over 40 years, and working with such esteemed writers as Simone de Beauvoir, V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, Margaret Atwood, John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Philip Roth. Happily for us, Athill is still writing, and is now, at 92, achieving the greatest success and renown of her life thus far.